Characterizing the Urban Mine—Challenges of Simplified Chemical Analysis of Anthropogenic Mineral Residues
, Amund N. Løvik 2, Renato Figi 3, Claudia Schreiner 3, Claudia Kuntz 1, Nathalie Korf 1, Matthias Rösslein 4, Patrick Wäger 2 and Vera Susanne Rotter 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The title of the paper (Characterizing the urban mine + challenges of simplified chemical analysis of anthropogenic mineral residues) is a bit confusing, maybe not precise. I can classify the paper in the category of analytical chemistry and subcategories of mineral waste / mineral resources. More precisely, the paper is on the lack of applicability of typical wet (“in house”, according Authors definition) analytical routs and XRF for satisfactorily accurate determination of the wide range of metals in complex mineral matrixes. The Authors put a lot of work, trying (I guess) to use simplified methods or the ideal, from the end-user point of view, XRF for credible determination of the metals content in two exemplary substances. They honestly described their attempts in the paper + supplementary material. Even if am a bit lost in details, conclusions are clear – simplified methods or XRF may be use for evaluation of some trends in concentration changes and rough absolute concentrations, not for reliable analysis of complex minerals. I firmly recommend the paper for publication – it is a good lesson to be careful with the routine analysis results.
Besides, I suggest Authors to clarify the caption of Figure 4. There is no green in the “a” figure. There is no explanation of colors in the figure “b”. Compare lines 459,460 in the text.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Please find my comments in the attached pdf
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