The Dynamic Evolution of the Material Flow of Lithium Resources in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. In this paper, to analyze the dynamic material flow of China’s lithium resources, the authors establish a life-cycle lithium resource material flow analysis system. Compared with the reported analysis system, what is advantage?

2. expected for lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide is the most basic lithium salt product and the basic material for the production of secondary lithium salt and metal lithium products. However, lithium carbonate is mainly imported and Lithium hydroxide is mainly exported, why?

3. Figure should be illustrated in the main text, such as Figure 5, Figure 7 etc. al.

4. In China, how about of production and supply ratio of lithium ore, production, import and export volume of lithium, evolution of the lithium resource consumption structure, lithium consumption and lithium quantity in lithium products, scrap amount of lithium battery and lithium battery products in use in the 2021?

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The paper deals with the dynamic evolution of material flow of lithium resources in China. The paper is nicely written and can be accepted for publication after addressing the following minor corrections:

Line 17: Full form of NEV to be given in its first appearance. 

Similarly, the full form for “kt” to be given in its first appearance. 

Table 1: The definition of conversion coefficient may be given as foot note below Table 1.

Line 129: The company name is “I Lithium Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals”. Kindly check whether “I” is there in the beginning of this name.

Line 164-166, Table 3, Table 4, line 288, line 359-361 ” lithium cobalt acid” to be corrected as “lithium cobalt oxide”, “lithium nickel cobalt manganese acid” to be corrected as “lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide”, “lithium manganese acid” to be corrected as ““lithium manganese oxide”.

Line 362: what is terpolymer materials?.  Is it ternary cathode material?

Line 202: “there” to be corrected as “their”.

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

1.There is some grammar mistakes in this manuscript, please correct after careful examination.

 2.In Line 209, The arguments of a function are not uniform. The independent variable in the equation of the Weibull distribution function is t, but when designing the range of the independent variable in the function, it is written as x.

 3.Line 253-254

It describes the change of lithium mine output from 2007 to 2014, so the data of 2014 should be compared with that of 2007 rather than that of 2015.

 4.Line 332-333

It is not necessary to quote the efavirenz event here.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Referee's comments

to the paper entitled  "The Dynamic evolution of the material flow of lithium resources in China" by  Zhiyong Zhou et al.

 

The paper is devoted to the problem, which is important from the practical pointof view. Th manuscript contains much information, which would be interesting to the researchers of lithium sources inother countries. In this manuscript, mainly secondary material resources of China are analyized: batteries of cell phones, notebooks, digital cameras etc.

The demands of lithium compounds are considered, The conversion coefficients of some lithium salts into carbonate, hydroxide, oxide, chloride are also given.

 

The paper could be published after some additions.

Introduction. First of all, I would recommend to mention the possibility to recovery lithium from sea water or concentrate of sea water desalination (China has enough sea resources). Both lithium-selective sorbents and membranes could be used for this purpose. Refer to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2021.119441

https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202108801

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-018-0749-1

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2021.130713

 

Please devote one paragraph of the introduction to salt lakes of South America.

 

Results and discussion.

 

I would recommend to make a list of symbols for clarity.

 

Figures contain data up to 2020. The data for 2021 are very welcome, if it is possible, of course.

Author Response

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