Comparison of Medium-Pressure UV/Peracetic Acid to Remove Three Typical Refractory Contaminants of Textile Wastewater
, He Xu 1 and Dongqing Cai 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper studies the use of UV/peracetic acid in decontamination of RB5, ANL, and PVA. Multiple experiments are presented to compare their decontamination, including varying exposure times and pH levels. Results seem promising for the introduced application. However, the paper needs more improvement on different levels, ranging from language to depth of analysis. Here are a few comments for the authors to work on:
- In the experimental section, multiple 2 mL samples were withdrawn from the 100 mL of targeted contaminant and the buffer solution mixture. This means that the irradiated volume is getting lesser after each sample withdrawn and this may suggest that the decontamination rate might increase as more samples are withdrawn. Can the authors comment on this?
- In figure 5, PVA removal in the obtained wastewater was relatively lower compared with the sample prepared in the experiments. Authors offered possible explanation as “probably because of the competing effect of DOM in real water”. Further explanation or a reference to support this assumption is needed.
- In figure 6, the inhibition rate increased after treating ANL with MPUV/H2O2. Although the authors indicated this point in the text, they did not offer an explanation. In general, the authors should not only point to the results, they should also offer potential explanation for the results.
- Some of the authors are also authors for reference 19. That reference studied the evaluation of Fe2+/peracetic acid to degrade same pollutants that were studied in this paper. It would be interesting if the authors include a comparison between both works.
- The full name of RB5 (reactive black 5) was used more than once in the text to introduce the abbreviation
- UV exposure time, which I anticipate to be 5 minutes, should be mentioned in bar figures such as Figures 2 and 5.b
- Language can be improved at many locations throughout the text. One example: “After treated by PAA” à “After treating by PAA”
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Author(s)
The manuscript needs some modifications to make the presentation of the topic better. These modifications are listed in the following points:
1. The introduction is very brief and does not include an adequate presentation of the manuscript idea. Substances of printing and dyeing wastewater must be mentioned clearly. Also, the current and previous methods used to treat wastewater from this industry, whether in China or in the world, should be reviewed. I hope to add more references of treating the wastewater using UV/PAA/H2O2 and UV/H2O2. In addition to the above, the author(s) did not clarify the toxicity of the studied materials, i.e., reactive black 5 (RB5), aniline (ANL) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and why they were chosen instead of other pollutants.
2. Materials and Methods: The author(s) must mention the specifications of real wastewater studied before and after the filtration process. The paper includes an important paragraph, which is (The toxicity variation of the three pollutants), but this paragraph needs more clarification and more detail. This is also applying to section 3.6. Acute toxicity evaluation, which needs to support the results obtained by the necessary references.
3. Conclusions must be modified so that they are not similar to the writing style of the abstract, otherwise what is the point of stating the same statements twice?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Author(s)
All the requirement modifications are achieved.
