Analysing the Reciprocity Law for UV-LEDs in Water Disinfection of Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, and Clostridium perfringens

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The aim of this study is to verify reciprocity law in disinfection wastewater process using UV light. This research is very interesting, and the data is very rich. It can be accepted after solving the following problems:

 

1. The logic of the article is very confused. It is suggested that the author classify and summarize the content to improve the readability of the article.

 

2. The language of the article also needs to be revised by native English speakers.

 

3. The data must have error bars to eliminate human errors.

Author Response

Hello Sir,

I have followed your instructions and change the literature to make it clear, I also added the error bars to the graphs.

Regards.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper’s main objective is to study water disinfection using UV-LEDs to determine the behavior of the inactivation rate with respect to the UV dose and different irradiance levels.

 To improve the quality of the paper the authors should be made some explanations and corrections

1) The information in the tables should be revised and reduced, especially when it is also detailed in the text.

In some cases, the information is not clear. For example, in 3.2 the authors write:

“Main results did not show significant changes on the raw water quality along the different experiments” 

but the COD concentration is 38 vs 57, with a difference of 50%.

 

2) In the experimental work, the authors describe the reactor as 

"The 55 mm diameter Petri dish with the wastewater to be treated (15 mL)"

Considering the small total volume of the experiences and the number of samples for each run  (more than 10) it is recommended to the authors clarify the experimental details.  This information is crucial to reproduce the experiments.

Author Response

Hello Sir,

I will discuss the points one by one to make it clear

1)  We conducted every experiment in to two parts, part one for E. coli, Enterococcus faecalis and the second part the day after for Clostridium perfringens, in the case of the 275nm wavelength experiment, the COD was 42 and 57 for part one and part two respectively. Similarly with 265nm, the COD was 51 and 43 for part one and part two respectively.

2) The experiments setup has been described.

Regards.

Kamel

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors study the reciprocity law for UV-LED-based water disinfection. The research may be interesting to the field. However, there are some issues that should be addressed before the consideration of publication.   1. This work is similar to previous work, for example, ref. 9 Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology, 2021, 217, 112129. Moreover, the reference work studied more wavelengths. I think more experimental conditions such as wavelengths and optical powers should be tested. Also, the authors need to clarify their novelty clearly.   2. More background on water disinfection and purification should be discussed in the introduction. Other methods should be discussed, such as Advanced Materials 2020, 32, 1907061 and Advanced Materials 2021, 33, 2102994.

Author Response

Hello Sir,

I am writing to address any concerns you may have about the uniqueness of my research paper. I understand that it is important for research to be original and make a meaningful contribution to the field, and I believe that my work meets these criteria.

One key aspect of my research that makes it unique is the use of three different microorganisms E. coli, Enterococcus faecalis and Clostridium perfringens. Enterococcus faecalis and Clostridium perfringens are not covered in the water disinfection researches, in addition Clostridium perfringens is considered as one of the most resistive microorganisms to be dinfected.

Also, by examining the relation between the optical power of UV LEDs and the turbidity of wastewater using these three different microorganisms, I was able to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence the effectiveness of this treatment method.

In addition to using real wastewater instead of a laboratory-prepared substance, I also designed and built the experiment setup myself rather than using an industrial commercial one. This allowed me to have complete control over the variables in the experiment and ensured that the results were not influenced by any external factors.

I believe that these original contributions make my research paper a valuable and unique contribution to the field. I hope that this information helps to persuade you of the novelty of my work.

Sincerely,

Kamel