Assessment of Heavy Metals and Radionuclides Concentration in Selected Mineral Waters Available on the Polish Market
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The reviewed manuscript is dealing with the assessment of heavy metals and radionuclides concentration in selected mineral waters available on the domestic market, in Poland. This is an interesting study. It contains scientific information that will be of interest to readers. The problem can be regarded as being within the scope of Applied Sciences. However, the manuscript should be improved. After carefully analyzing the content, I address some major comments, which should be considered prior to acceptance of this manuscript.
1. It gets better to add Poland to the title.
2. It gets better to use the more familiar units (mBq/l and μg/l) instead of (mBq/dm3 and μg/dm3).
3. Introduction:
· The opening is extremely poor.
· The Introduction contains much well-known simple information such as water (Lines 31:40) and the definitions of ionizing radiation and radioactivity (Lines 97:104 and 115:121 and Figure 1).
· The Introduction contains a lot of not related information such as trace metals in the aquatic environment (Lines 64:71).
· The Introduction should be completed with recent articles on the same topic published in international peer-reviewed journals.
· I suggest rewriting the Introduction section, focusing on information related to drinking water contamination, sources of radionuclides and heavy metals contamination and their health impact, and the importance of assessing drinking water contamination.
· The last paragraph of the introduction section should clearly explain the objective of the study.
4. Materials and Methods:
· Why were water samples acidified with HNO3? The collected samples were bottled water samples. It is well known that bottled water was treated to prevent any biological activity.
· Can you indicate the energies of rays you used for the determination of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40Kactivities?
· Why 228Ra is not measured?
· The used equations for dose assessment should be presented in the Materials and Methods.
5. Results and discussion:
· The analysis of results is descriptive, needs to be more critics and analytic, and supported by the literature.
· Tables 1, 2, and 3 should be merged into one table. The values of activity concentration and error should be combined (348.5 ± 25.6).
· All figures should be improved.
· Please consider providing heavy metal concentrations in a table as supplementary materials.
6. Lines 10:11; Please remove.
7. Line 13; ‘’radioactive metals’’ change to radionuclides.
8. Lines 15, 17, 18, and 19; Put 232, 40, 226, and 137 in superscript (here and so onwards).
9. Line 20: it will be better if you arrange the measured elements alphabetically (here and so onwards).
10. Line 74; calcium and magnesium not trace metals?
11. Line 131; Why do you provide the permissible concentration of tritium?
12. Line 139; Please remove (Csondor K. et al., 2020; Turhan Ṣ. Et al., 2019) (here and so onwards).
13. Line 146; deep-sea drinking waters??
14. Line 176; please remove lead, cadmium, and copper (here and so onwards).
15. Table 2; Błąd pomiaru stężenia radu??
16. The conclusions could be presented in terms of the characteristic findings of the study. The conclusions are not supported by the results.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank the Reviewer for critical reading and helpful, substantive and constructive comments. The manuscript was revised and rewritten as suggested which improved the quality of our article. We admit that these modifications significantly improve the quality of our manuscript. We hope that the changes and clarifications are acceptable and satisfactory in the expectations of the Reviewers and Editors.
The work concerns the important issue of the content of heavy metals and radionuclides in natural mineral water
This is an important topic and fits in with the current trends and scientific challenges. Therefore, I believe that the article submitted for review contains valuable information and should be published. The survey methodology is correct and clearly defined.
Below you will find details of the modifications and explanations. Thank you so much for revising our manuscript!
The title has been little change, as Reviewer suggested – “...on the Polish market”. The units were arranged in accordance with the Reviewer's instructions. The introduction has been corrected according to the Reviewer's comments. The samples were acidified to stabilize the composition. Rad 228Ra is alpha radioactive emitter and we measure the gamma lines our range does not cover the tables, according to the reviewer's note, have been linked. The article was supplemented with a table of results for heavy metals. All comments marked by the Reviewer were taken into account.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is well-written but needs revision. The comments are listed below:
1)Mention the permissible amount of heavy metal in water.
2)Mention the measurable limit of the potassium
3)Cannot interpret the results of Fig.9. Change the format of the graphical representation.
4) By accumulating in the body, they cause many diseases, they cause 83 you and the risk of abnormal development- Reframe the sentence
5)They come from deep 190 water intakes located in Poland and in Poland and were also bottled- Reframe the sentence
6)Radioactive elements can migrate to human body through inhalation or by eating 225 meals or water, where radioactive elements are present-Reframe the sentence
7)It should be noted that zinc is not a metal for which drinking water 317 requirements are specified- Reframe the sentence
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank the Reviewer for critical reading and helpful, substantive and constructive comments. The manuscript was revised and rewritten as suggested which improved the quality of our article. We admit that these modifications significantly improve the quality of our manuscript. We hope that the changes and clarifications are acceptable and satisfactory in the expectations of the Reviewers and Editors.
The work concerns the important issue of the content of heavy metals and radionuclides in natural mineral water
This is an important topic and fits in with the current trends and scientific challenges. Therefore, I believe that the article submitted for review contains valuable information and should be published. The survey methodology is correct and clearly defined.
Below you will find details of the modifications and explanations. Thank you so much for revising our manuscript!
Reviewer 2
The limit values for metals in the waters are given in the text. The measurable limit of K has been given. The graphic format of fig. 9 has been improved. The selected sentences have been reformatted.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Authors have stated that 0.3 ml of concentrated nitric acids was added to samples before analysis, but they have not used the control sample with distilled water or DI water to cross-check the error.
2. Did the author evaluate the nitric acid for the aforementioned factors as well?
3. The abstract part has to be improved by including more outcomes.
4. Introduction: Authors should go thoroughly through the English writing and grammar part.
5. The mineral water treatment process should be mentioned in the introduction section as a generalization. Additionally, their regulation and quality control should be highlighted.
6. Manuscript should be more precise and freer from grammatical mistakes.
7. In all figures, the author should state the standard limit of the parameter.
8. What is the significance of defining the mean value in Figures 2-5?
9. Whenever necessary, horizontal and vertical axis titles should be included in graphs.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank the Reviewer for critical reading and helpful, substantive and constructive comments. The manuscript was revised and rewritten as suggested which improved the quality of our article. We admit that these modifications significantly improve the quality of our manuscript. We hope that the changes and clarifications are acceptable and satisfactory in the expectations of the Reviewers and Editors.
The work concerns the important issue of the content of heavy metals and radionuclides in natural mineral water
This is an important topic and fits in with the current trends and scientific challenges. Therefore, I believe that the article submitted for review contains valuable information and should be published. The survey methodology is correct and clearly defined.
Below you will find details of the modifications and explanations. Thank you so much for revising our manuscript!
The introduction has been improved. The standard limit is not defined for all analyzed elements. The article has been improved in spelling and grammar range.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The improvements achieved by the authors in the revision look good. The reviewer appreciates the specific response from the authors, which addressed the reviewer's major concerns. I recommend this manuscript for publication after minor revision.
1. Why 228Ra is not measured?
· 228Ra is alpha radioactive emitter and we measure the gamma lines. This is not an acceptable answer. Please see (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2011.12.003; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2009.11.018). I am not asking the authors to perform any experimental analyses, but please recheck the HPGe output to make sure that the absence of 232Th and its daughter 228Ra is correctly presented.
2. The results should be supported by the literature.
3. All figures should be improved.
4. Line 11; ‘’radioactive metals’’ change to radionuclides.
5. Please check the references' style.
Author Response
All comments of the reviewer were taken into account.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
the topic of the manuscript is interesting and authors have addressed most of the comments.
the comments are as follows-
Check the sequence of figure numbers. fig 12 is missing.
what are the y axis in fig 1 to 13 ? indicate in the figures.
Author Response
Dear Reviwer,
The y axes in Figures 1 to 13 are described in the figures.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
