The Possibility of Silicon Purification by Metallurgical Methods: Part I

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript can be accepted for publication after major revisions, see the followings:

*The introduction should be improved (The literature review is not good).
*English should be improved.
*The Abstract and Conclusion should be improved. Outstanding results should be defined as quantified in the abstract and conclusions.
*The References should be updated.

*The novelty of this article is not clear. Please more explain it.
*Better description and explanation of tables 1 to 3. The description of the results of the tables is not sufficient and convincing.
*There are some typing errors and inaccuracies in the manuscript. Please, check the paper again for any possible misprints.

*The quality of figures should be improved.
* Introduction part needs to be extended by some of the recently published papers to show the importance of metallurgical grade silicon in good journals. The following references should be included in this manuscript:

[1] Kekelidze, N., G. Tavadze, E. Khutsishvili, L. Gabrichidze, and G. Mikaberidze. "STUDIES ON EFFECTIVE SEGREGATION COEFFICIENTS OF IMPURITIES IN SILICON PULLED FROM MG-Si MELT." EUROPEAN CHEMICAL BULLETIN 5, no. 9 (2016): 376-379.

[2] He, Yunfei, Wenhui Ma, Aimin Xing, Mingshi Hu, Shicheng Liu, Xi Yang, Jiawang Li, Shuzhong Du, and Wanli Zhou. "A review of the process on the purification of metallurgical grade silicon by solvent refining." Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing 141 (2022): 106438.

 

*I hope that the authors refer to more published papers in Processes.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and recommendations, we believe that it helped us to improve the manuscript.

Best regards,

IPT team

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

This paper presents the possibility of purification of silicon by metallurgical methods in two phases. At the first phase, the metallurgical grade silicon produced and at the second phase, the metallurgical purification has been done. The manuscript is properly organized and fall the journal scope very well. Some aspects required clarification as follows:

- What is the goal of proposed work and what scientific gap presented study fill.

- In abstract add more numerical results and more important write a statement summarizing your main conclusion from your results etc.

- In the introduction, it is recommended to include a table where the most important approaches related to the study proposed in this research be listed. This table will help to comprehend easily the main contributions of the authors.

- More than half of cited papers in literature review are older than 5 years. Please add more recent references, for example, please mention (give) following more current studies in the sections of Introduction, and References List for completeness of your study and the references:

  - Energy, exergy and exergy-economic analysis of a new multigeneration system based on double-flash geothermal power plant and solar power tower, Journal: Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, Publication dates: 2021/10/1.

- Exergoeconomic and environmental analysis of a combined power and water desalination plant with parabolic solar collector, Journal: Desalin. Water Treat, Publication date: 2020/7/1.

- In the conclusion section, the results should be expanded significantly and quantitatively.

- In the results and discussion section, the figures should be more fully interpreted. In fact, from the explanations given, the reason for examining these figures is not clear.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and recommendations, we believe that it helped us to improve the manuscript.

Best regards,

IPT team

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Through the review, I think this is a very nicely written paper, and the author analyzed and discussed the results in detail and correctly. The analysis developed in this paper is correct and the obtained results are interesting. The paper has sufficient novelty which covers the scope of the Processes journal. Therefore, the manuscript may consider for publication in the Processes journal after responding to the following comments and revising the manuscript properly.

1. The novelty of the work is missing in the introduction. Authors are suggested to include a separate paragraph by discussing the novelty and importance of the present work.

2. More recent relevant literature or similar work discussion is mandatory in the introduction section, which is missing in the Introduction. Authors are suggested to add one paragraph in the introduction section by discussing the recent progress and citing similar work.

3. Authors are suggested to use more references from the recent past and recommend to cite the following references in the introduction section on the application of silicon in solar cells. DOI: 10.1016/j.rinp.2018.05.038; 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112223; 10.1016/j.ijleo.2018.07.116.

4. Also, check the typos throughout the manuscript during revision submission.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and recommendations, we believe that it helped us to improve the manuscript.

Best regards,

IPT team

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This article can be accepted.

Reviewer 2 Report

All requested modification has been done. It can Publish in the present form.