The Optimal Performance of the Energy Efficiency of a Pulse Dust Collection System towards Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of the article

titled „The Optimal Performance on Energy Efficiency of Pulsed Dust Collection System

Towards Sustainability”

Journal: Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417)

Manuscript ID: applsci-1455776

Authors: Chun-Ling Ho * , Yung-Chih Tang , Wen-Chih Chiu

Section: Environmental Sciences

Special Issue: 10th Anniversary of Applied Sciences: Invited Papers in "Environmental and Sustainable Science and Technology" Section

To analyze how to design processes for high efficiency and low cost with more attention paid to the environment i san important issue. The purpose of the study was to find a better method to optimize process toward sustainable manufacturing that minimizes waste and reduces the environmental impact.

The analysis carried out includes the model of pulse dust collector to analyze energy-saving and cost. Pulse dust collection system is a commonly used filtration equipment in industries. The material of filter elements, the type of dust, the conditions of pulse-jet and the filtering speed are the factors that affect the operational efficiency. The energy consumption and cost were examined based on the mathematical model with the parameters used in the simulation process like pulse interval time, pulse time and dust concentration. The optimal operating state under the condition of energy saving and low cost is found. The best performance is determined by three conditions, including 10 sec the pulse interval time, 0.1 sec of the pulse time and the lower dust concentration.

I find the study valuable because it focuses on manufacturing processes that pollute less and create less production waste, maximizing resource efficiency. The study thus increases social responsibility in environmental sustainability.

My specific comments on the content of the article are as follows:

• Elaborate more on the logical link between the simulation results and the conclusions. The conclusions are very general and the simulation results are very specific. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies and working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible. Directions for future research may also be indicated.
• Please standardize the notation of units. Sometimes they are placed in parentheses, sometimes they are written in italics, sometimes they are not italicized.
• Remove all the dots before formulas (replace with colons maybe).
• Why are Tp and Tw not written with subscripts (T_p, T_w)?
• How do Tp and Tw relate to the broken lines in Figure 3?
• What I miss in the article is the authors' explanation of what is sustainability in industry? What is sustainability in manufacturing? Sustainable manufacturing not only generates more sustainable products, but also the production processes become more sustainable, which increases the total company, social and environmental benefits. Authors should provide information on the definition of sustainable development in its various aspects. In the classical approach, the sustainable development is understood as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987). World Commission on Environment and Development identified three components of sustainable development as environmental, economic and social. Environmental protection, economic development and social development are thus the three pillars of sustainable development. Other aspects like technology (as examples see Hassan et al., 2017; Joung, Carrell, Sarkar, & Feng, 2013; Arena et al., 2009), energy (Li, Mirlekar, Ruiz-Mercado, & Lima, 2016a), efficiency (Ruiz-Mercado, Gonzalez, & Smith, 2014a), manufacturing (Harik, El, Medini, & Bernard, 2015), quality and performance management have been discussed through the literature. Also corporations must satisfy all three dimensions of sustainability by maintaining and enhancing economic, environmental and social capital simultaneously (Dyllick & Hockerts, 2002, p. 131; Gond et al., 2012, pp. 219–220; Oželienė, 2017, pp. 97–101). The above issues should be addressed in the paper.

Additional literature sources that can be cited are as follows:

1. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Hassan, M.F., Saman, M. Z. M., Mahmood, S., Nor, N. H. M., & Rahman, M. N. A. (2017). Sustainability assessment methodology in product design: A review and directions for future research. Jurnal Teknologi, 79(1), 37–44. https://doi.org/10.11113/jt.v79.8697
3. Joung, C. B., Carrell, J., Sarkar, P., & Feng, S. C. (2013). Categorization of indicators for sustainable manufacturing. Ecological Indicators, 24(Supplement C), 148–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.05.030
4. Arena, Marika, Duque Ciceri, N., Terzi, S., Bengo, I., Azzone, G., & Garetti, M. (2009). A stateof-the-art of industrial sustainability: Definitions, tools and metrics. International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 4. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJPLM.2009.031674
5. Harik, R., El, H., Medini, K., & Bernard, A. (2015). Towards a holistic sustainability index for measuring sustainability of manufacturing companies. International Journal of Production Research, 53(13), 4117–4139. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2014.993773
6. Li, S., Mirlekar, G., Ruiz-Mercado, G. J., & Lima, F. V. (2016). Development of Chemical Process Design and Control for Sustainability. Processes, 4(3), 23. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr4030023
7. Ruiz-Mercado, G. J., Gonzalez, M. A., & Smith, R. L. (2014). Expanding GREENSCOPE beyond the gate: A green chemistry and life cycle perspective. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 16(4), 703–717. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-012-0533-y
8. Dyllick, T., & Hockerts K. (2002). Beyond the case for corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment, 11(2), 130-141. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.323
9. Gond, J., Grubnic, S., Herzig, C., & Moon, J. (2012). Configuring management control systems: Theorizing the integration of strategy and sustainability. Management Accounting Research, 23(3), 205-223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mar.2012.06.003
10. Oželienė D. (2017). A review of enterprise sustainable development models: Critical appraisal. International Scientific Journal “Science. Business. Society, 2(2), 97-103.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is focused on  very actual and important  topic for the practice. 

The abstract  is well structured and provides the essence of article.

Lines 181-183 should be deleted.

In fig. 10a scale of pressure drop should be 150 mmAq like in similar figures.

Was the influence of Tp, Tw and C on collection efficiency also investigated?

In subchapter 2.2 please consider different numbering of filtration parameters because they are similar like number of equations.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper is about "The Optimal Performance on Energy Efficiency of Pulsed Dust Collection System Towards Sustainability"

Authors state that the study is pursuing sustainability on increasing operational efficiency by reducing costs and waste and also that the study found that the material of filter elements, the type of dust, the conditions of pulse-jet and the filtering speed are the factors that affect the operational efficiency.

in line 55: "dust collection equipment needs to operate all day, which has become one of the main causes of energy consumption in the manufacturing process. Where is the reference of this sentence?

I found hard to classifiy this paper has a journal paper, this is more suitable for a technical paper, conference type.

It lack on innovation, major contribution, scientific foundings.

Authors fail to prove significant reduction costs.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have addressed all my suggestions and have improved significantly this paper.

Paper is now ready for publish.