Key Barriers to the Adoption of Biomass Gasification in Burkina Faso

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this work, the authors studied the potential barriers to the adoption of gasification in Burkina Faso based on interviews with the stakeholders of the energy sector and using a hierarchical analysis process method to identify the biggest barriers to the adoption of gasification.

It is very original and interesting. Before the publication, some aspects need minor improvements such as:

• Introduction-1.3: in the introduction, the technology of steam-oxygen gasification of biomass to produce chemicals was not cited (e.g. Giuliano A, Freda C, Catizzone E. Techno-economic assessment of bio-syngas production for methanol synthesis: A focus on the water–gas shift and carbon capture sections. Bioengineering 2020;7:1–18. doi:10.3390/bioengineering7030070);
• Introduction: in the introduction, the possibility to apply the gasification technology to other feedstock (e.g. organic fraction of municipal solid waste or digestate) was not described. 
• Conclusion: the research application of this study isn’t clear. Authors have to deepen the potential applications of their research, also extending the same analysis potentially to other systems;
• In general, the authors should describe the advantages of the adopted approach and obtained results also considering the potential environmental improvement.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments on Sustainability-1231580

Major Comments:

In this study, the authors have focused on the key barriers for the adoption of biomass gasification in Burkina Faso. Moreover, they have investigated the case studies of gasification and pyrolysis in Burkin Faso. The literature review is not strong enough to provide research gaps for this research work. One of the major flaws is that the method and materials are rather simple and lacks information, unable to provide strong evidence to support the novelty and innovation. The structure of this manuscript needs major improvements. Most of the information in the introduction and material section is general and should be excluded. In the results and discussion section, most of the information is presented without any reference to experimental values. Authors should consider rephrasing some paragraphs as the information is not clear and the sentences are too long. The authors need to revise the figures as the scale font style and size are different throughout the result section. Furthermore, The English language used in the manuscript needs to be improved as there are many punctuations and grammatical mistakes throughout the document. Sentences need more clarity, and some sentences should be rephrased. Most of the references are too old, recent references related to this study are very less and should be increased. Due to the unavoidable flaws, this manuscript needs major revisions.

Specific Comments:

1. keywords are not suitable. Authors are advised to write the keywords which show the novelty of this study.
2. Page 1, line 38-40: “In addition to fuelwood, whose main constraint is sustainability, agricultural by-products and waste are used to provide biomass for energy production for industry.” If the fuelwood has the above-mentioned constraints, then how it can produce biomass? This sentence is very confusing. The authors are advised to rewrite this sentence.
3. Page2, line 49-51: “Direct combustion is often used to meet the heat and steam needs of traditional industries, but it releases particulate and gaseous pollutants that are harmful to human health and to the climate [9,10,11,12].” Authors are advised to unmerge references. Please correct them throughout the manuscript. Do not pile up more than 2 references at one place.
4. Page 2, line 58-60: “The transformation takes place under the effect of a gasification agent (air, oxygen, steam) added in controlled quantities, in order to avoid complete combustion using temperatures ranging from 500 °C to 1,000 °C depending on the technology.” What are the parameters and flow rate of air, oxygen, and steam during the gasification process? Please mention the conditions.
5. Page 2, line 85-88: “In Africa, marketing gasification should not even be considered because its viability for the generation of electricity, for example, depends on the availability of biomass, population size [15, 8], and possible technical, economic, financial and political barriers that are classified as technical and non-technical.” This sentence has very random information. Please rewrite it.
6. Page 3, line 113-114: “This gas generator was intended to supply the community Health District based on the conversion of cotton stalks, maize, sorghum, and groundnut husks.” What exactly the gas generator is supplying? Please write complete information.
7. Page 3, section 2.1: Authors are advised to insert references of the given information in all the section.
8. Page 3, line 138-139: “Benchmarking can help understand the failure of gasification by comparing it with the success of pyrolysis.” How the gasification fails according to the reference benchmark? Please elaborate on why the gasification has failed?
9. Page 4, line 166: “nine-point scale, called the Saaty scale (1).” Authors are advised to cross-check the table captions with the text throughout the manuscript.
10. Page 4, Table 1 needs to revise. The values should be in sequence.
11. Page 5: In the result and discussion section, most of the information is too general. Please describe the reason behind every barrier and compare your results with the recently published papers.
12. Page 5, Fig. 1: “Intrinsec barriers, Extrinsec barriers, gouvernmental” Authors are advised to correct the spellings throughout the figure.
13. Page 6, line 214-215: “Technologies become defective a year after they are installed or even sooner, i.e. after only three months of use.” This sentence is very confusing. Authors are advised to rewrite it and justified it with recent reference.
14. Page 6, section 3.1.2: The information is this section is just a repetition of Fig.1. Please explain how the economic and financial barrier contributes to the failure of gasification and justified with recently published literature?
15. More recent research about global warming, renewable energy, emissions reduction methods and sustainable development is suggested to be added to make the background and discussion more strong: International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering, 2019; 17(4). Energy, 2020; 209:118444. Sustainability, 2020;12(23):9975. ACS Sustainable Chemistry& Engineering, 2020; 8(34):12877-90. Sustainability, 2021;13(2):788.
16. Page 7, line 255-266: “In addition, no subsidy mechanism is available for biomass energy and even less for gasification technologies.” Please add a reference to this information.
17. Page 9, line 305-308: “Figure 4, which corresponds to the prioritization of socio-cultural and organizational barriers, shows that at a CR of 0.095633, insufficient training of technology users ranks first, followed by the non-involvement of key actors, lack of coordination between stakeholders and lack of successful experience.” First please mention how the CR is related to Fig. 4? The sentence is random and please rewrite it with justified recent literature.
18. Conclusion: The conclusion only talked about the barriers to gasification. It could not frame the whole picture of the contribution of the study. It is suggested to mention the limitations of the study along with contributions and possible future work.
19. All figures and table captions need to revise and must be cross-checked.
20. The authors are advised to revise references, including the latest references. Please see some suggestions in the specific comments and for the ‘introduction’ section.

Author Response

Veuillez consulter le fichier ci-joint s'il vous plaît

Please see the attached file 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have responsed well to those proposed questions by reviewers and carefully revised the whole paper according to the suggestions of reviewers step by step. Therefore, the quality of this paper has elevated greatly, hence this paper is now suitable to be published in the journal.