Polyethylene Identification in Ocean Water Samples by Means of 50 keV Energy Electron Beam
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall I feel this is a very good manuscript but there should be some additional information on the energy of electrons.
A 50 kev electron will travel only about 40-45um in water and this should be explained to the readers. Also, as an electron moves through water or other material, it will lose some energy. With a large number of electrons coming from the electron beam, the 50 kev electrons will produce electrons, primary and secondary, of a wide range of energies. This should be discussed along with how this would affect the photons produced.
On line 251 "in chapter 2" should be "in section 2" or "in Materials and Methods".
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are pleased you have appreciated our work and regarding your comments here below (in green) our explanations.
We hope you will find our reply satisfactory and let us know if we need to adjust our explanation in order to make better understand the readers.
Thanks again
1-A 50 kev electron will travel only about 40-45um in water and this should be explained to the readers
Yes, we did take in consideration in our model the mean free path of the electrons as a function of entire sample volume length. That tracking has been achieved thanks to progressive volume cells, with dimensions of the order of the electron mean free path as you mentioned.
2- Also, as an electron moves through water or other material, it will lose some energy. With a large number of electrons coming from the electron beam, the 50 kev electrons will produce electrons, primary and secondary, of a wide range of energies.
This is true, but note MCNPX takes into account, if requested as in this case, both electrons and photons, in other words the photons are produced along the electrons travel through any medium (mostly water in our case), so that we don't neglect any photon, even if we don't report any result about the electrons since we are not interested in them as we are going to measure only photons.
If you feel this may be misunderstood we can stress the fact MCNPX performs a photon/electron coupled calculation.
Best Regards
Piero Neuhold, Luca J Tagliapietra
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a theoretical paper based on simulation by MCNPX Monte Carlo simulation for sub-atomic particles analysis and their subsequent detection, able to identify polyethylene particles in water among microorganisms. This is quite good for future research in developing new technologies for measuring the polyethylene contamination. Even is a simulation, this was well design and can be used in an application. Authors explained very well their point of view and their results.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are really pleased you have appreciated our work.
Best Regards
Piero Neuhold, Luca J Tagliapietra
