referee 2:

review of ms #2021 by indarto et al.

general comments:

the gliding arc reactor is widely exploited in many applications, as it is a

simple and inexpensive way to generate non-thermal plasma. one of the applications
is the emission control of volatile organic compounds (waste and exhausted
treatment). thus the idea presented in the paper is not a novel one, although the
results of parametric study on chloroform are presented here.

answer:
the author thanks for reviewer's comment. yes, that is absolutely true that the
application of the gliding arc plasma to decompose or reduce the amount of
emission voc. some scientists also have applied this technology to decompose some
pollutants, such as h2s [1] and n2o[2]. the novelty of this research is not
regarding to the application it self to decompose the pollutant but the
material/compound that has been used as the object of decomposition. in this study
we have used chloroform (chcl3) as the target material. no paper (as far as the
author knows) that present about it. so, stressed point here is not in the
application of gliding but the new material that has been used here as the target
of the plasma decomposition process.
ref:
[1] v. dalaine, j. m. cormier, and p. lefaucheux, j. appl. phys., 83 (5), 2435
(1998)
[2] k. krawczyk and m. mlotek, appl. catal., 30, 233 (2001)

i find the paper is not suitable for publish in its present form. the quality of
writing is way below the standard of any international journal. the authors
should seek the assistance of professional writers as major overhaul of the paper
is necessary.

answer:
the author thanks for reviewer's comment on the standard of english written. in
terms of the quality of english of the paper, in this revised manuscript, the
authors have been consulting and re-constructed the manuscript with help from
colleagues and english consultant. you will find the difference on this revised
manuscript.

specific comments/questions:

1. the analysis of results is very scanty in places. for example, author mentions
on page 8 that "figure 3b shows the power consumption
decreased..........chloroform increased", however offers no explanation why power
consumption will decrease with a small increase in chloroform concentration (max
concentration of chloroform in air is 8 ppm).

answer:
regarding to the decreasing power consumption as the increasing of chloromethane
concentration, it could be mainly affected by the breakdown voltage and current of
the chloroform, which was diluted in the air (mainly). every (gas) compound has a
specific value of breakdown voltage and current. compared to the air breakdown,
chloroform has a power-breakdown lower than air. after initiating arc plasma
process (breakdown), the power was getting decreased to the stabilized power. in
this experiment, the stabilized power could not be manually adjusted. it was done
automatically. generally, gases which have higher breakdown power will have higher
stabilized consume power also. that is why the consumed power has been decreased
when the concentration of chloroform in the air was increased.

2. oxygen is not a radical as mentioned on page 8.

answer:
on page 8, the author shows the reaction of partial and complete oxidation
reaction, not the whole plasma reaction. in this case, the author wants to compare
the result of plasma reaction and oxidation reaction by comparing the total
selectivity of cl2 and (co+co2) of the gaseous product reaction. and the reviewer
is true that in this case, in partial and complete oxidation reaction, the oxygen
form is not a radical one. but, it is possible to form radical in plasma reaction.
the reason why the author wants to compare with oxidation process reaction is that
the main products were dominated by cl2 and co+co2. oxidation of chloroform, if it
follows reaction 5 and 6, was also producing cl2 and co+co2 as the main product of
the reaction. it's quite good to be compared each other due to this reason. and by
comparing the ratio of cl2 and co+co2 that has been produce, the main reaction
could be possibly same in term of gaseous products.

3. the term "selectivity" for chlorine is confusing as chlorine is produced by

both reactions 5 and 6. "selectivity" term is used here in a non-conventional way.
"yield" or % of chloroform as cl2 or co+co2 at the outlet will be less confusing.

answer:
as mentioned before (answer number 2), the author just wants to make a comparison
to the oxidation process both complete and partial one (reaction 5 and 6). this is
not describing the plasma reaction. the term of selectivity, the author thinks, is
much more important compared to the yield or % of gaseous product to the gas input
injection because it can show clearly about the distribution of product reaction
although these terms could be calculated and converted easily from term of
'selectivity' to 'yield' of '% product'. in this case, selectivity could describe
the effectiveness of the plasma process on the final product that we want. author
thinks that the high satisfaction of the reaction could be achieved if the plasma
reaction could produce high selectivity of cl2 and co or co2.

4. it was mentioned on page 10 that the ratio of cl2 to co or co2 is 1.5 at lower
gas flow rate. however, this is not very clear from any of the figures 3, 4, and
5. how did author come to that conclusion?

answer:
the author thinks that figure 3 and 4 have clearly showed that the reaction
mechanism give the selectivity ratio of cl2 was higher compared to the selectivity
of (co+co2) in lower flow rate of injection gas (180 nl/min). in case of higher
total gas flow rate (figure 3 and 4), the selectivity of (co+co2) was getting
higher than cl2. based on the trend of these graphs, the author makes the
conclusion that the exact ratio of the selectivity of cl2 to co+co2 into 1.5 was
possible to be achieved at the lower total gas flow rate (180 nl/min or lower). in
this case, the author did not make clear explanation in case of different
frequency. in the different frequency, the reaction could be different due to
different power consumption of plasma process. (terlalu byk in case nya.. :p, jd
keliru)

5. why with increasing frequency selectivity of co+co2 decreases while the

conversion of chloroform increases? what other reactions occur in high frequency
and why? why cl2 selectivity goes through an optimum at higher flow rate of 300
nl/hr? why cl2 selectivity is always lower than co+co2 selectivity? no explanation
is provided.

answer:
in this manuscript, the author makes deep explanation on the result of experiment
rather than in term of reaction kinetic. but, in reviewed manuscript, the author
added some information related to the reaction. to answer the question why the
selectivity of co+co2 was decreased when the conversion of chloroform increased,
it could be caused by increasing the redundant number of cl in radical form. chcl3
is consisted of 3 cl and 1 c. if we increased the number of conversion of
chloroform, the amount of cl in radical form will totally increase 3 times more
the c (in case of perfect decomposition). increasing number of cl radical will
increase the probability to collide (again) with c. it means this phenomena will
reduce the possibility of c radical to react with o radical or o2 in high energy
level to produce co and co2.
in case of high and low frequency case and another case of kinetic reaction, the
author did not do the simulation relating to it. it will be done by next step of
this project. first, the author wants to explore the application of gliding arc
plasma to decompose chloroform. by adjusting three variables (total gas flow rate,
concentration, and power frequency) the works has been done and finished.
proposing way of reaction has been proposed here by collecting the information
from other paper. plasma simulation in gliding arc environment is quite
interesting to be studied because the special form of the plasma. it's also quite
difficult and spends a lot of time. in this case, by proposing some mechanism
reactions were quite enough to know the basic reaction of it.

6. if equations (5) and (6) are the dominant reactions, then why the selectivity
of cl2 and co+co2 are never in phase in figures 3, 4, 5?

answer:
the author did not mention that equation 5 and 6 become the dominant reaction of
chloroform decomposition using gliding plasma. the author has already provided
information ... with partial and complete oxidation reaction of chloroform. so,
once more, the author wants to compare the experiment result to the oxidation
reaction. the reason is the amount of cl2 and co+co2 are quite dominant compared
to the other gaseous product. it is quite useful if the author attach the
information of it (oxidation process) to the gliding plasma reaction (what do u
want to say here?). however, if equation 5 and 6 become the dominant reaction, the
gaseous product distribution of cl2 selectivity compare to co+co2 selectivity must
follow 1.5. but, the result is quite different and only in lower gas flow rate the
results was closed to the oxidation process.

7. authors should provide an approximate energy efficiency of the process.

answer:
author has provided with energy efficiency in the manuscript explanation. it
caused that every point in this experiment has specific energy efficiency (apa
maksud dgn every point?). terminology of power consumption is quite popular in the
application of plasma technology to the process reaction. in this case, the author
has calculated the specific energy efficiency in term of conversion of chloroform
in every point of experiment and made an average of it. this information has been
added to the manuscript.

8. conclusion is very weak. so what do we get out of this study? how this
technology is comparable/better with/than the best available technology? instead
of flow rate, conversion as a function of residence time probably will be a better
indicator for the researchers in this field.

answer:
the author has added some more information related to the experiment result of
chloroform decomposition using gliding arc plasma. regarding the usage of
residence time instead of flow rate, the author thinks that it's not quite
correct. gliding arc plasma is different from the other cold plasma such as
dielectric barrier discharge which is has quite uniform plasma zone. the author
has done the experiment by using the different nozzle and injection flow rate but
keep the time resident in the reactor and the result is different. this is caused
due to the different flow pattern of the gas when it enters the plasma zone
between the plate electrodes. although in this paper, the author mentioned about
the different total gas flow rate will give the different resident time, it is
quite difficult to calculate the exact time of gases entering the plasma zone from
the beginning to the end. author just used the general terminology of reaction,
that increasing total gas flow rate will reduce the residence time of gases in the
reactor, in the other hand, decreasing total gas flow rate will increase the time
of gases in the plasma zone of gliding. so, in this case, the author suggests to
remain the term of total gas flow rate instead of residence time.