Arsenic(V) Removal from Water by Resin Impregnated with Cyclodextrin Ligand

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled “Arsenic(V) removal from water by resin impregnated with cyclodextrin ligand Processes” by Zawierucha et al. describes the performance of a commercial resin loaded with permethylated beta-cyclodextrin in adsorbing Ar(V) ions for removal of contaminants from water. The paper has a number of minor and major issues that should be addressed before it is published:

Minor Issues

• The abstract states that the application of the study is for removal of As(V) is from “synthetic water”. The authors should correct the statement. Water is an abundant natural resource that does not need to be synthesized and there is nothing in the manuscript to suggest that water was synthesized for the study.
• Line 27-28 change “one toxic metals” to either “one toxic metal” or “one of the toxic metals”. Change “part” to “listed”.
• The self-citation to reference 10 on line 43 is inappropriate because the cited study is not about about harmful effects to human health.
• On line 60 “Cyclodextrin” is abbreviated “CDs”. Instead it should be “CD” so that it can be written CDs in plural. As currently defined, the plural form would be written CDss.
• Line 62 d-glucose should be “D-glucose” (small capital D)
• Line 64 the statement “three types of CDs exist” is not correct. There are many types of CDs that exists, but only three are commonly found in nature.
• Line 69 the “W” van der waals should be capitalized
• The statement “Because of the above unsolvable CD-based polymer materials are obtained [24].” Is unclear. Please revise the sentence to clarify its meaning.
• Subject verb agreement error on Line 74: three papers are cited yet they are referred to as “a review”
• Line 77 the word analogies is not appropriate and does not make sense in this context.
• The authors abbreviate “cyclodextrin” as “CDs” and then proceed to use the full word “cyclodextrin” very frequently throughout the manuscript. The authors should either use the abbreviation all throughout the manuscript or delete it entirely.
• Lines 104,105, elsewhere, there should be a space between 0 and °C
• Ligand 1 should be mentioned somewhere in the text in Section 2.2
• Lines 140-145: The equations have “x” characters in them which are probably meant to be multiplication symbols. The authors should use real math symbols and not the character x. Also “V” and “qe” are undefined in Equation 2 and these terms should be defined.
• Line 147, sometimes ligand 1 is rendered in bold text and other times it is not in bold text. The authors should be consistent and follow journal guidelines
• Line 152-153. A model cannot “believe” something. Please correct this statement.
• Lines 157-159 the terms used in the equation should be italicized. The same comment applies on lines 140-145, 164-166, 171-173, 198, 199-200, 266, the axes of the graphs in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, Table 1,
• Line 165 change immensity to magnitude
• Line 175 The first word “A” should not be written in bold text
• Line 193 “Plot can be used to find the total adsorbed metal quantity (maximum col umn capacity) [32].” Is unclear. Please describe what is meant by “Plot”
• Line 239 delete the hyphen in per-methylated
• Line 270 change “mechanism” to “mechanisms”

Major Issues

• There are no error bars in the plots in Figs. 3, 4, and 5. The authors should repeat each experiment at least 3 times in order to estimate the uncertainty of the measurements.
• The authors claim that their sorbent can be re-used, but they do not prove this claim by measuring sorption efficiency over repeated cycles of use. The NaOH wash may damage ligand 1 or cause it to be extracted into the mobile phase. The authors should show data indicating performance throughout repeated cycles of use.
• The authors claim that their methylated beta-cyclodextrin compound is “permethylated” which means that all hydroxyl groups have been methylated. This reviewer is skeptical of that claim and would like to see NMR evidence as proof. If it is indeed permethylated, then the authors’ statement on lines 226-227 “Metal ions are able to be eliminated from water as they interact with the protonated or deprotonated hydroxyl groups of CDs” is irrelevant to this study.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please refer to attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed all concerns adequately and this manuscript can now be recommended for publication. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have adequately responded to the comments and suggestions of both referees, and the manuscript is now publishable