Potential Applications of a Novel Ballast Water Pretreatment Device: Grinding Device
and Kyoungsoon Shin 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article addresses efficiency of the grinding device (GD) as a potential replacement for the pretreatment filtration device of ballast water, solid grinding and viability experiment were conducted according to treatment flow rate of 5 tons (Pilot test, PT), and 200 tons (Full-scale test, FST) per 14 h. The solid grinding effect was observed in the particle size of ≥ 25 μm.
Some recommendations for improvements are given below:
Line 56, the acronym for the TSS should be listed
Line 71, the sentence should be refrased, usage Unlike and Because is confusing
Author Response
Revision- summary
Thank you for your time our manuscript and reviewing it, which improved the overall quality of our manuscript. We agreed and confirmed with your correction and comments. So we have sent the revised manuscript, and a version containing all the changes to be visible (red color).
At the following, the points mentioned by the copyeditor were all comments.
-Reviewer 1-
General Comment 1
The article addresses efficiency of the grinding device (GD) as a potential replacement for the pretreatment filtration device of ballast water, solid grinding and viability experiment were conducted according to treatment flow rate of 5 tons (Pilot test, PT), and 200 tons (Full-scale test, FST) per 14 h. The solid grinding effect was observed in the particle size of ≥ 25 μm.
Some recommendations for improvements are given below:
Line 56, the acronym for the TSS should be listed
>> The full name of the TSS is specified in line 56 as ‘total suspended solids (TSS)’. Please check again.
Line 71, the sentence should be refrased, usage Unlike and Because is confusing
>> We agree with your comments. So, we changed the sentence into “Unlike the conventional screen-type pretreatment filtration device technology for ballast water, the corresponding technology directly decomposes and discharges aquatic organisms, and this technology has a structural feature that does not induce clogging.”
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article deals with an important issue and presents potentially interesting results. Unfortunately, the article has a defect that disqualifies it as a scientific article. The authors investigate experimentally the "Grinding Device", the structure of which is described only schematically. How can the test results be verified without knowing the details of the device structure and its essential parameters? How can a method be assessed without knowing the operational parameters of the device and all relevant information on the proposed process?
According to the reviewer, the authors must provide a detailed description of GD so that the results can be verified in other research grups. In addition, the performance data of the proposed method should be included and compared with the methods currently in use. Reference should also be made to articles describing the use of GD in related applications.
The structure of the article itself is also difficult to read. A huge amount of details has been provided, but there are no synthetic descriptions, charts and tables allowing for a quick comparison and evaluation of the proposed solution.
After careful consideration of the above comments, the article may be re-subjected to the substantive and formal review.
Author Response
Revision- summary
Thank you for your time our manuscript and reviewing it, which improved the overall quality of our manuscript. We agreed and confirmed with your correction and comments. So we have sent the revised manuscript, and a version containing all the changes to be visible (red color).
At the following, the points mentioned by the copyeditor were all comments.
-Reviewer 2-
The article deals with an important issue and presents potentially interesting results. Unfortunately, the article has a defect that disqualifies it as a scientific article. The authors investigate experimentally the "Grinding Device", the structure of which is described only schematically. How can the test results be verified without knowing the details of the device structure and its essential parameters? How can a method be assessed without knowing the operational parameters of the device and all relevant information on the proposed process? According to the reviewer, the authors must provide a detailed description of GD so that the results can be verified in other research groups. In addition, the performance data of the proposed method should be included and compared with the methods currently in use. Reference should also be made to articles describing the use of GD in related applications.
>> We agree with your comments. Therefore, we modified figure 1 and inserted the Grinding Devices' specification (Table 1) used in this test. We also inserted the paragraph for the principle of Grinding Devices (2.1 Principle of GD). We hope it clarified your doubt.
The structure of the article itself is also difficult to read. A huge amount of details has been provided, but there are no synthetic descriptions, charts and tables allowing for a quick comparison and evaluation of the proposed solution. After careful consideration of the above comments, the article may be re-subjected to the substantive and formal review.
>> We inserted figure 7 that helpful a quick comparison and evaluation of the proposed solution under high turbidity water conditions, including our test results.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors corrected the article, introduced the necessary changes and completed the article with the required data. I believe that the article is valuable, contains an interesting scientific concept and can be published as is.