A Chemical Separation and Measuring Technique for Titanium Isotopes for Titanium Ores and Iron-Rich Minerals

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work describes the development of a chemical preparation and separation technique for Ti rich minerals. It was found that purified solutions in conjunction with solution standards measured with dry plasma and medium resolution mode showed mass dependent results with the low errors. The procedure produces sufficient resolution for the measured minerals. Specific comments are given below.

1. What is the key novelty of the present work in comparison to existing literature? For example, ref. 12 also reports very similar ion-exchange separation and ICP-MS techniques for Ti isotope fractionation. What is the key development in the present work?
2. This report has a main focus on analytical procedures, and thus it is strongly recommended to include a scheme or flow chart to demonstrate the sample processing and measurement processes.
3. In Fig 2, it would be helpful to annotate the background color coding like that in Fig 1.
4. The authors concluded “…Fe breaks through in multiple elutions of the profile. Therefore, one TODGA column pass cannot properly remove all of the unwanted chemical matrix”. Why does this situation occur? Did the authors perform multiple column passes? It would be helpful to elaborate in the manuscript.
5. Citation format should be uniform. A few citations should be adjusted such as “Xhu et al. 2002” “Zhu et al. 2002”.
6. It is strongly recommended to re-organize the manuscript to have an individual section of “Results”, following journal’s requirement. The “Materials and Methods” section should only describe the technical procedures, parameters and instrumentation.
7. Conclusion section must be improved. A more detailed summary of the developed technique should be given. Key experimental results should be stressed. And the significance of the present study should be elaborated.
8. Annotation of the abbreviations in Table 1 and Table 2 do not seem properly arranged.
9. There seem to be frequently writing errors/unclear expressions such as “…fractionation (>98‰ [7,8] and mass dependent fractionation [4,9–12].”; “…magnetite and ilmenite are 0.14‰ which sufficient to…”. Higher writing quality is desirable before publication.

Author Response

The attached document explains our responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The Authors described review manuscript concerning on chemical separation  and measuring technique for titanium isotopes for ores and Fe-rich metals.

The manuscript could be published in Minerales after major revision.  Below, several aspects  have mentioned, which should be corrected and some doubts should be explained.

 

1. Abstract should contain the most important results from the paper.
2. The motivation of studies should be highlighted in the Introduction.
3. What is the physical meaning of fitting in Fig. 3?
4. The Conclusions should be improved and extended.

 

 

Generally, the Authors did some work. However it could not be published in present form in Minerales. I recommend deep and careful revision.

Author Response

The attached document has our replies to these comments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

“A Chemical Separation and Measuring Technique for Titanium 2 Isotopes for Titanium ores and Iron-Rich Minerals” is the excellent article concerning the separation of titanium from minerals. The technique developed allows to use ion exchange chromatography for the quantitative elution and isolation of titanium species with established column procedures. The versatility and accuracy of the technique has been evaluated statistically.

I believe the article will be interesting for the readers of the Journal and can be published in its current form.

Author Response

We appreciate the positive reviews provided here.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have written a well-structured and thought research article. The background of the introduction is sufficiently described. The experimental part is described in detail. I also have no objection to results and discussion.

I just have a few some suggestions to experimental part and results and discussion:

Page 2, Materials and Methods: please provide information about the reagents suppliers (HCl, HNO3).

Why before description in Table 1. -Comparison… and Figure 4. - Linearity … is the – sign?

Page 7, line 190. Authors wrote: Equally important, Zhu et al. [2] presented results using this technique for Ti isotope compositions in rocks which possess a more complicated chemical matrix.

What makes the matrix more chemical complicated? Please explain this briefly.

Author Response

The attached document has our responses

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed previously raised questions and concerns.

Reviewer 2 Report

The Authors took into account all reviewers comments and improved the manuscript. It ould be published in present form.