The manuscript entitled, “Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide Modified Magnetic Apricot Shells for Removing Congo Red Dye and its Artificial Neural Network Model” provides the application of magnetic materials in water remediation. However, the present manuscript suffers with many flaws, and the synthesis mechanism is not clearly mentioned. Critical analysis is needed to improve the quality of the manuscript. The comments are as follows:
Write the mechanism for the formation of Fe3O4 by using FeCl2.4H2O in the presence of 1M HCl and 3 M NaOH. How was byproduct formation in it?
There is very little difference between raw AS and magnetite modified AS. Please provide FTIR spectra for magnetite.
Remove Table 1 for FTIR bands as it has been already described in the text.
Mark the XRD spectra for their indices in Figure 2. Also perform the XRD of dye loaded materials to decipher the chemistry of adsorbents.
Provide the TEM images for the magnetite and put TEM images in a separate Figure from SEM figure.
Please study the adsorption of congo red on different dye concentrations. Include it for study of time and pH, isotherm and kinetics.
Why the adsorption capacity is low for the magnetic adsorbent?
Include recycling and regeneration of adsorbents.

Authors have significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. I recommend its publication in the NJC.