Inactivation of Contaminated Fungi in Rice Grains by Dielectric Heating

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Reviewer’s comments to the authors

Manuscript title: Fungal Inactivation in Rice Grains by Dielectric Heating

Manuscript    ID: applsci-1952948

Recommendation: The authors strongly encouraged clarifying the novelty and importance of this work, I have doubts whether the implementation of the work has led to meaningful results. Therefore, (Major revision is required).

The following are my comments and critique that should be addressed before acceptance for publication:

# As a non-native speaker, I found the manuscript easy to read and understand. However, there are some grammatical errors and, in some instances, the phrasing needs to improve.

# Microbial scientific names should be in italic

# At the end of the abstract, it prefers to show the importance of your work (flashing conclusions and recommendations)

# Add space between words and values/numbers, check your paper carefully

# Line, 29: fungal not fungi

# Define abbreviations upon first appearance in the text

# Unify the writing style of heading and subheading

# BP17 in figure 6, should be not italic

# Lake of statistical data (data analysis) in the results part in addition to figures

# Lake of statistical data such as error bars or SD on the figure and figure legends

# The authors should clarify why they used a different electric intensity only at these specific degrees (70, 80, 90, 100, and 110 °C).

# Why the authors selected that specific strain Aspergillus sp. (BP17)? It is better to identify and confirm the fungal strain by molecular techniques. Does this strain have the deposited number? accession number? etc.

# Discussion section should be improved

# Divided figure 8 to 2 separated figures

# I recommend the author check the reference list for format. Some references are lacking information (volume, page numbers). Some have the full name of the manuscript while others use abbreviations, etc.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1) In the Abstract section, the authors stated that the combination of temperature and electric field intensity significantly (P ≤ 0.05) reduced the percentage of fungal inactivation in rice grains. Did the authors want to express that the synergy of temperature and electric field intensity reduces the inactivation rate of fungi? Are you sure it's down? And it's the deactivation rate that is reduced, not the survival rate?

2) The novelty of this work is not adequate.

3) Figures 2 and 3 should be combined into one figure. Or at least, Figure 3 could be moved to the supplementary materials.

4) However, the dielectric constants of rice powder slowly reduced from 5.06 to 4.63. What are the units for 5.06 and 4.63?

The dielectric loss of Aspergillus sp. BP17 rapidly decreased from 48.92 to 13.13 with 195 the increase of frequency. Similarly, what are the units for 48.92 and 13.13?

5) What is the initial amount of contamination of Aspergillus sp. BP17 in rice powder in this work? What is the amount of Aspergillus sp. BP17 in the rice under natural conditions?

6) In its natural state, is Aspergillus sp. BP17 the most important contaminated microorganism in rice?

7) In addition to Aspergillus sp. BP17, there are many other fungi. Therefore, the manuscript title “Fungal Inactivation in Rice Grains by Dielectric Heating” should be changed to “Aspergillus sp. BP17 Inactivation in Rice Grains by Dielectric Heating”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This research proposes using a dielectric heating method for fungal inactivation in rice grains by radio frequency energy. This topic of current research is interesting and acceptable for publication after minor revision.

The following are some problems that should be corrected or responded:

1. What are the macroscopic results of high difference of dielectric loss between fungi and rice?

2. For Fig. 8b, need to elaborate on the results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have answered all of my comments, and I would suggest acceptance for this manuscript.