PWAT-D-23-00163

Evaluation of point-of-use treatments and biochar to reduce 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) contamination in drinking water

PLOS Water

Dear Dr. Hauptman,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Water. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Water's publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

I would like to sincerely apologise for the delay you have incurred with your submission. It has been exceptionally difficult to secure reviewers to evaluate your study. We have now received two completed reviews; the comments are available below. The reviewers have raised significant scientific concerns about the study that need to be addressed in a revision.

Please revise the manuscript to address all the reviewer's comments in a point-by-point response in order to ensure it is meeting the journal's publication criteria. Please note that the revised manuscript will need to undergo further review, we thus cannot at this point anticipate the outcome of the evaluation process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 11 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at water@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pwat/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Miquel Vall-llosera Camps

Staff Editor

PLOS Water

Journal Requirements:

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Water’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Water does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Please revise manuscript follow comments as shown in attach file. The authors must rewrite "Abstact" and "Discussion" parts. Your abstract seem like Introduction. In abstract, you must display your results.

Reviewer #2: 1o) In the reference section, there are many repeated references (for instance, references 7,12, and 46; 9 and 10; 14 and 17; 11 and 22; 38, 41, 43,44, and 45). Reference 24 has capital letters in the initial names of the title.

2o) Words are missing in line 150.

3o) What are BSK labs? It appears in line 170 for the first time.

4o) Line 239: What were the amounts of almond biochars that were used?

5o) Line 285: Why weren´t tested other types of isotherms to the data? For instance, Langmuir, Sips, Redlich-Peterson. How do we know that only Feundlich fits the data?

6o) Line 382: How does the surface area of almond biochar compare with other biochars?

7o) Lines 390 e 392: Instead of activated carbon, use biochar.

8o) Line 395, Figure 5: Why are the results so much concentrated next to -0,5 (log Ce)?

9o) Line 400: In Table 3, discuss the meaning of 0,99 as the value of 1/n (very close to one). What is the implication of this?

10o) Lines 408-409. Is it a fact that “Households lack information regarding removal efficiency and cost for removing TCP at the household level” or is it just a guess. Maybe use some word as “generally lack information”.

11o) Why wasn't performed continuous flow adsorption tests? For instance, Rapid Small-Scale Column Tests (RSSCT).

12o) Too much use of "We" and "our".

13o) In conclusions, it is stated that "Batch tests indicate that almond biochar sorption of TCP is less effective than granular activated carbon sorbents made from coconut shells or coal" (Lines 484-485). Is this based on the values of Kf alone?

14o) Is it possible to estimate the expected concentration of 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) in water if it is used in a pitcher point-of-use filter? That would be useful to compare with the 98% removal achieved by the commercial pitcher filters.

15o) In terms of cost, how does the almonf biochar compare with commercial pitchers?

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PWAT-D-23-00163 reviewed.pdf

Evaluation of point-of-use treatments and biochar to reduce 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) contamination in drinking water

PWAT-D-23-00163R1

Dear Hauptman,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Evaluation of point-of-use treatments and biochar to reduce 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP) contamination in drinking water' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Water.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact water@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Water.

Best regards,

Guillaume Wright

Executive Editor

PLOS Water

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Water’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Water does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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