Thermal Decontamination of Spent Activated Carbon Contaminated with Radiocarbon and Tritium

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors studied the conversion of spend AC contaminated with 3H and 14C into recyclable AC using a thermal desorption process and oxidative pyrolysis. A model-free kinetic analysis was used to establish the optimum conditions for the thermal desorption of 3H- and 14C-bearing adsorbates from spent activated carbon. The scientific concept of the paper is good. The paper is well written with good plan of experimental analysis and subject addressed in this article is worthy of investigation. This study is interesting to be published.

Please add degas conditions for BET analysis.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

We really appreciate your review and your valuable comment on our submitted manuscript.

We inserted a degassing condition for N2 sorption experinment to meet your comment "Please add degas conditions for BET analysis." by inserting following sentence in Page 2, lines 83-84 (noted in red color in revised MS).

Before the measurements, the samples were outgassed for 2 hours at 200 ℃ in the degas port of the adsorption apparatus.

Many thanks,

Hee-Chul Yang

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all the reviewer's comments and have highlighted it in the manuscript. The manuscript now meets the expectation of the journal.  

Author Response

Dear reviewer

We appreciate your review and valuable comments on our submitted manuscript.

Many thanks,

Hee-Chul Yang