Quasi-Equilibrium and Unsteady Mass Transfer of Low-Grade Bloedite in the Process of Static Water Dissolution
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Although this manuscript is well written. I don't find any useful for publication of this work. Unless the authors failed to address the importance of this work. who will use or cite this information/result ?
Author Response
- Reviewer #1
Although this manuscript is well written. I don't find any useful for publication of this work. Unless the authors failed to address the importance of this work. who will use or cite this information/result ?
Ø Author reply: Thank you for your comment. We have revised the manuscript in an effort to highlight the novel characteristics of this work. The main feature of this manuscript is to discuss the unsteady state phenomenon of soluble salt mines in water-soluble mining, which is one of the unpredictable problems encountered in salt (bloedite) mine production. We hope that our research results can provide references for the actual production process. Please let us know if further revisions are required.
Reviewer 2 Report
The work brings new contributions to the kinetics of dissolution of multiple solute systems in non-stationary (but quasi-stationary) conditions. Another strong point of the work is its usefulness and constant mention of the field scale in the interpretation of laboratory results.
However, it has aspects that deserve to be improved, namely:
- the materials & methods section - the explanation is very brief, hardly a junior researcher could successfully reproduce the experimental component of this work. It lacks the mention of replicas, illustrative graphical diagrams, etc.
- the reference list is limited (23), and there is a repetition (19=15)
- a typographic error in legend and title of the ordinate axis in figure 6 "dessolved" instead of dissolved.
Author Response
The work brings new contributions to the kinetics of dissolution of multiple solute systems in non-stationary (but quasi-stationary) conditions. Another strong point of the work is its usefulness and constant mention of the field scale in the interpretation of laboratory results.
However, it has aspects that deserve to be improved, namely:
- the materials & methods section - the explanation is very brief, hardly a junior researcher could successfully reproduce the experimental component of this work. It lacks the mention of replicas, illustrative graphical diagrams, etc.
Ø Author reply: Thanks a lot for your comments. We added a graphical diagram (Figure 1) and revised the section “2. Materials and Methods”. Please find the highlighted texts in the section 2. Please let us know if further revisions are required.
- the reference list is limited (23), and there is a repetition (19=15)
Ø Author reply: Thanks a lot. The references have been added. Now, there are 31 references. The repetitive reference (i.e., Ref. 19 in the original version of manuscript) has been deleted.
- a typographic error in legend and title of the ordinate axis in figure 6 "dessolved" instead of dissolved.
Ø Author reply: Thank you so much. Those errors have been corrected.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
You article is very interesting, but any important details described not clearly.
General remarks: You should add of measurement error on all figures with experimental data.
Line 93: (Materials and Methods)
- You should describe of experimental procedure more clearly. It should be better if you add of the picture for explain of the text in 100-110 and to indicate of all dimensions. How amount of each reagents did you use in the experiments?
- How is the salt layer height at the beginning of the experiment?
- How many water did formed after ice melting?
- How was the solution sampled?
- You should indicate chemical composition of bloedite ore
Line 164 (Figure 2):
- Why different between experimental and calculation data is above at longer the duration of dissolution?
- Can to explain of it change of diffusion coefficient with increase saturation degree?
- Why measurement for MgSO4 and Na2SO4 were carried out at different duration of dissolution? Compare this data is very difficult
Line 212 -215 (Figure 4 and 5):
- Did these curves show for bloedite ore or mix of bloedite ore and pure MgSO4, Na2SO4? Please, add this information in the figures title
Author Response
- Reviewer #3
Dear authors,
You article is very interesting, but any important details described not clearly.
General remarks: You should add of measurement error on all figures with experimental data.
Ø Author reply: Thank you so much. The error bars have been added in Figure 3-7 which are based on experimental results.
Line 93: (Materials and Methods)
You should describe of experimental procedure more clearly. It should be better if you add of the picture for explain of the text in 100-110 and to indicate of all dimensions. How amount of each reagents did you use in the experiments?
How is the salt layer height at the beginning of the experiment?
How many water did formed after ice melting?
How was the solution sampled?
You should indicate chemical composition of bloedite ore
Ø Author reply: Thank you very much for your comments. Figure 1 has been added into the revised version of manuscript. The experimental parameters have been updated in more detail. Please see the highlighted texts in the section “2. Materials and Methods”.
Line 164 (Figure 2):
Why different between experimental and calculation data is above at longer the duration of dissolution?
Can to explain of it change of diffusion coefficient with increase saturation degree?
Why measurement for MgSO4 and Na2SO4 were carried out at different duration of dissolution? Compare this data is very difficult
Ø Author reply: Thank you. We have explain the different experimental and calculation results in the second paragraph of the section “4.1 Dissolution and diffusion processes of a single electrolyte”, where please find the highlighted texts: “The difference between experimental (Exp.) and calculated (Calc.) results in Figure 3 (a) and (b) is due to the deviations in the calculation process. According to equation (1)-(9), it is assumed that the parameters (e.g., DAB) are not accurate as expected, which makes the makes the calculation error larger at longer duration of dissolution and diffusion. However, the calculation is still reliable in practice, because the calculated results are close enough to the experimental data even after nearly 3000 hours of diffusion”.
For the decreased diffusion coefficient with increased saturation degree, we provide an explanation. Please find the last sentence of the first paragraph of the section “4.3 Distribution of local mass transfer coefficients in a mixed electrolyte system”: “this is because the solute concentration and viscosity are small, and this causes the mass transfer resistance smaller. Such a phenomenon is also consistent with the general law in the diffusion of salt solutes in aqueous solutions [23, 31]”.
It is our careless mistake that measuring MgSO4 and Na2SO4 at different duration of dissolution. To make up for this mistake, Figure 3(c) was added and used to compare the diffusion of the two salts based on the fact that the experimental data are basically consistent with the calculated value. And, please find the highlighted texts in the first paragraph of section “4.1 Dissolution and diffusion processes of a single electrolyte”: “To directly compare the diffusion behavior of MgSO4 and Na2SO4 in aqueous solution, Figure 3 (c) shows the calculated results of saturation degree profiles at different diffusion time.”.
Line 212 -215 (Figure 4 and 5):
Did these curves show for bloedite ore or mix of bloedite ore and pure MgSO4, Na2SO4? Please, add this information in the figures title
Ø Author reply: Thank you so much. Yes, the titles of Figure 3-11 have been updated.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I can see the authors has put more efforts into the revised manuscript, it looks stronger.
