Neural-Network-Inspired Correlation (N2IC) Model for Estimating Biodiesel Conversion in Algal Biodiesel Units
, Anas Ahmed 3, Rizwan Nasir 1 and Pau Loke Show 4,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article describes modeling of the reaction time and process temperature influence on the efficiency of biodiesel production from algae oil. The modeling concerns only selected process parameters and only a few their ranges. The input data comes from 4 papers by other authors. In each of these studies, a different oil was used and, for example, it is not known to what extent the different substrate influenced the results obtained. The authors themselves on page 9 point out that the type of raw material matters. The usefulness of the presented results is debatable. Although the authors conclude that their work is of great practical importance for biodiesel research, they do not specify why. The scarcity of the analyzed data does not allow for broader generalizations, hence the article should be corrected, taking into account a larger number of data from the literature, or the research results should be completed on their own. In view of the emerging doubts, the article should also clearly explain what its added value is and what it brings new, among others in relation to the papers [27-30] from which data for analysis were taken. Thus, in my opinion, the scope of the presented results and the scope of their analysis are insufficient to regard the work in its current form as a fully fledged article.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper title Neural Network Inspired Correlation (N2IC) model for estimating biodiesel conversion in algal biodiesel units is a great work with interesting results. I highly reccomended for publication. However, please address these comments:
Abstract, Line 18, What was the error? What are the main outcomes of the paper?
Page 2, Line 46, those names should not be in italic?
Please check the scientific names of microalgae. They must be in italic. Please see for example caption of Figure 7 and Figure 8
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article has been slightly revised and supplemented, mainly in terms of citing additional literature items. The changes made do not significantly change the reviewer's previous assessment of the article.
Reading the revised version of the article, I once again asked myself what is the practical usefulness of the presented content, what other researchers could use from this article, what the evaluated article brings over those works from which the authors took the test results. The article shows that the process of algae oil conversion to biodiesel can be modeled and that the most important parameters of this process are: reaction time, temperature, methanol to oil ratio and algae species. I admit that these conclusions are quite obvious. The modeling process itself was also described in a general way. Hence, in my opinion, in its current form, the content of the article is "too humble" to be considered as a full-fledged scientific article. I am sorry that I do not share the authors' opinion about the uniqueness of their article.
Chapter 3 is immediately followed by chapter 5, so I'm not sure if the authors missed some of the content while preparing the article file.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
