Adsorptive Removal of Dye (Methylene Blue) Organic Pollutant from Water by Pine Tree Leaf Biomass Adsorbent
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Detailed comments are presented in (Review.pdf) file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
The text needs an extensive proofread. The authors use some expressions that are not English.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript prepared biomass adsorbent by grinding pine leaves to remove methylene blue dye. The research idea is lack of bright spots, the experimental setting is not reasonable. The author's data processing and analysis are too superficial and lack of necessary basic characterization experiments. The manuscript is temporarily not up to publication, so the reviewer's recommendation is major revision.
1. Abstract paragraphs are too long and not concise enough.
2. What is the active substance that plays the main role in pine leaf adsorbent? How to ensure that other impurities have been removed.
3. The drawing of Figure is very poor and needs to be reprocessed.
4. There are a lot of errors in the manuscript. Like “Error, Reference source not found”.
5. Add XRD, XPS and other basic characterizations.
6. SEM lacks parameters of scales and test details.
7. Lack of BET related data, such as nitrogen adsorption desorption isotherm and pore size distribution diagram.
8. Lack of relevant literature research, no comparison with other biomass materials dye adsorption properties. Biomass derived adsorbents are widely applied in wastewater treatment. Some typical references are suggested to be cited, e.g. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts 2022, 7 (2), 109-115.
9. Unreasonable experiment setting, unclear writing logic and low innovation.
Moderate editing of English language is required.
Author Response
Attached here
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The present manuscript is a typical biosorption study. This study does not generate significant progress in this field. In addition, the manuscript has numerous errors and aspects that must be corrected. In this first review, the main comments would be:
1) The summary is too long. It should be simplified.
2) The scientific names of the species are misspelled. It is mandatory to respect the scientific nomenclature for this manuscript to be published.
3) The manuscript must be revised because it has numerous typographical errors and poorly constructed sentences.
4) Lines 113-114: That chemical formula is unnecessary and doesn't add anything to the content. Is this dye hydrated?
5) Instead of ppm use more appropriate units (mg/L).
6) How many replicates have been made of each experiment? Explain and include in Material and methods. This is important information that should be necessary to consider.
7) The abbreviation ml is preferable as mL.
8) Line 170: References cited in the text do not have a uniform format. In addition, there are references that are not included in the Bibliography.
9) FTIR: The author uses a fraction in the unit expression format, therefore 1/cm should be written.
10) Line 230-234: tests of the pHpzc value of this biomass are necessary. Experiments are needed to determine this value. This part of the discussion is meaningless without this value. The references given do not contain this information.
11) Figure 3: This figure is difficult to understand. The error intervals on the X axis are very high. It is interpreted that the adjustment margins of the pHs have an error of one pH unit or more. How is that possible? How were the pHs of the solutions adjusted to get those errors?
12) The legend (symbolism) of the figures is not correct. The legend lines do not represent the X axis, they must represent the Y axis. Also, how have the errors of the points in relation to the X axis been calculated? Explain.
13) The author must explain why the experiments were carried out at pH 5.18.
14) Lines 316-317: how does the author know that these differences are not significant without having done a statistical analysis?
15) Isotherms: it would be interesting to see the figures with the non-linear representation. The author should consider the possibility of a non-linear regression.
16) The Conclusion section is huge. This section is to include only what is concluded from this work, not results, not discussion. It is necessary to reduce, and a lot, this section.
17) The bibliography has an irregular format. Also, the species names are not italicized.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have kindly addressed the issues that I mentioned in my previous review report. They added the requested missing figures (of SEM and size distribution), correct language mistakes and gave valuable scientific explanations.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your satisfaction and acceptance recommendation
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript could be accepted now.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your acceptance recommendation
Reviewer 3 Report
The author has made changes to the manuscript but these changes cannot be observed in the manuscript because there is no record of change tracking. Apparently, many of the suggestions have been taken into account, however, there are still issues that need to be reviewed because the manuscript is of very poor quality:
1) First of all, what is the difference between this article and "Equilibrium, Kinetics, and Thermodynamics of Methylene Blue Adsorption by Pine Tree Leaves" Water Air Soil Pollut (2012) 223:5267–5282
I think this material is already published. Please explain this very clearly, because this article possibly should not be allowed to be published.
2) Delete from the Title and from the manuscript "synthetic wastewater". The author does not use synthetic wastewater. A dye solution in distilled water should not be considered as a synthetic wastewater.
3) It is still necessary to review the manuscript to eliminate spelling errors.
4) Using ppm as units, there is no consistency in the units because from ppm you have to get mg/g in the qt or mg/L in the Ce. Using mg/L is more consistent.
5) Since the author uses fractional notation to express the units, it is necessary to express 1/cm, not cm-1.
6) It is still necessary to correct ml for mL.
7) It is necessary to present a figure with the data of the experiment to determine the point of zero charge (at least in supplementary material).
8) Figure 4: The legend line of this figure does not mean pH, it means adsorbed amount.
9) Figures 5 and 6: The horizontal bars at the points indicate deviations in the initial concentration of MB, therefore, are these initial concentrations nominal or were they measured experimentally at time zero? If this is so, it should be included in Material and methods. It is strange that these bars are all apparently the same length. Explain.
10) The justification for the use of pH 5.18 is not clear. There is no evidence about it.
11) Figure 7: same comment as figure 4. The legend line is not absorbent dose. The line is qt.
12) Figure 8: same comment.
13) Figure 9: Legend line is not temperature. Is the author aware of what he is representing in these figures?
14) Figure 10: The starting pH is different, in this case it is 5.94, why?
15) The Bibliography continues to have an irregular format. For example, there are journal names without abbreviation and others with abbreviations. In addition, the scientific names of the species must be in italics.
Author Response
Attached here
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
