Life Cycle Assessment of Pilot-Scale Bio-Refining of Invasive Japanese Knotweed Alien Plant towards Bio-Based Bioactive Compounds
, Urška Jug 2, Lidija Čuček 1, Blaž Likozar 3, Uroš Novak 3 and Annamaria Vujanović 1,*
Angela Bisio
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript provides an overview of LCA of pilot-scale and lab-scale production of Japanese Knotweed. The manuscript reads well and the followed procedure is clearly explained.
I have the following comments to the authors for improvement of the manuscript:
1. All keywords should start with a capital letter.
2. In line 36, provide the reference IUCN 2011 in the reference list and mention it in a numerical format in the manuscript text consistent with the rest.
3. In line 84, please check if reference [16] is accurately cited and provide adequate references for sections a, b, c, and d.
4. In line 286, before the conclusions section, “Figure 3” should change to “Figure 5”.
5. In the reference list, please check if [35] is accurately cited in the correct style and present according to journal instructions.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors submitted a study about the life cycle of an invasive alien plant, underlining the importance of the sustainability, waste minimization and recycling.
The abstract doesn’t clearly present, in addition to the aim of the work, the applied methods and the obtained results.
The introduction provides a general view of the problem, focusing also on the current methods and rules for the environmental impact of extract production process, the biological activities of the Japanese knotweed extracts and the potential use of biopolymers. The aim of the work is clearly presented, the comparison was focused on lab- and pilot-scale production.
Section number 2 “2. Environmental impact assessment of lab- and pilot-scale extract production” should be named “Materials and Methods”.
Reference 27 it’s not correctly reported. Please revise the references settings according to the MDPI rules.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript “Life Cycle Assessment of Pilot Scale Bio-refining of Invasive Japanese Knotweed Alien Plant towards Bio-based Bioactive Compounds” describes an interesting study on environmental impact assessment for the extraction of valuable compounds from the Japanese knotweed rhizome bark.
The study is based on experimental results obtained in a laboratory scale and extrapolated to a proposed larger pilot scale with different equipment. Laboratory processes and equipment may not work in the most efficient conditions in terms of energy and solvent/materials consumption, whereas industrial scale systems do prioritize efficiency. Aspects such as these and the limitations of this study could be included in the discussion.
Overall, the manuscript is very interesting and easy to read, providing further information in tables.
A few revisions are suggested as follows:
Line 99: .....use and disposal (cradle-to-grave)
Line 218: Results and discussion
Figure 2: This diagram is not easy to follow, and the differences between the two processes are not clearly noted. Perhaps this figure could be revised for clarity for the readers.
Figure 3: The factors that contribute to each category are: electricity, excavation+transport, ethanol and liquid nitrogen. Shouldn't the factor "excavation+transport" be expressed as a consumable as the other 3 (using diesel fuel as mentioned in Table 1, for example)?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
