This paper discusses the correlation of atmospheric mineral dust, and heterogeneous chemistry with the lifetime of SO2 and would give a closer prediction of the formation of sulfate aerosols. Therefore this will be a good addition to our current knowledge in this field of atmospheric chemistry. 

I have a few comments and suggestions. 

1. Abstract: I think we shouldn't say accurately predict - This is because it is still a prediction. Maybe with near accuracy, some rewording would be good. 

2. Authors discuss at several points that the differences of dust surfaces can affect their heterogeneous reactivities. (Under driving factors of dust surface, line 265). Another addition to this section: TiO2 and other titanium-bearing minerals such as ilmenite showed night-time thermal reactions that involve redox cycling with nitrates, as well as pH dependency.

3. Figure 2: why do some minerals have lower sulfates in the daytime while the others have lower sulfates in the nighttime? Can this be explained with the change of particle pH?

what is the pH of each sample before the reaction? Fig 2b shows only the pH after reactions.

4. Is chemistries a real word?

5. Figure 3: why does the reactive uptake coefficient drastically increases after particle acidity reached ~4.5/ 5? 

6. For daytime chemistry, did you consider the possibility of the formation of sulfate radicals on surfaces with high Ti content?

7. Figure 5: Why the kinetics has increased drastically after pH 5? within the statistical error, do you see any difference between the aq phase and heterogeneous chemistry?

8. Figure 7: Can you better label the y-axes to explain what % contribution? 

Panel b: why does the heterogeneous sulfate contribution for a daytime peak at a certain dust concentration and lowers, whereas it reaches a plateau at night time?

9. Why is more SSA formed during nighttime, but more sulfate is formed during the daytime?

I have reviewed the manuscript “Significant formation of sulfate aerosols contributed by the heterogeneous drivers of dust surface” by Wang et al. Authors investigated the different metals and ions of the dust surface are associated with the heterogeneous formation of sulfate and used models to predict the heterogeneous reactivity. This study found that a significant amount of secondary sulfate aerosol was formed during nighttime and the heterogeneous drivers on the dust surface are more efficient to convert SO₂ to secondary sulfate. Given the importance of atmospheric secondary sulfate formation and heterogeneous chemistry of aerosols, this work is both significant and appropriate for this journal. However, there are some issues in this work that needs to be addressed before it can be published, as detailed below.

Introduction: authors should add some broad impacts of secondary sulfate aerosol as the motivation, such as the climate and health.

Line 45: authors need to add relevant references “… mentioned in the previous works” and be more specific.

Method Line 118: Can authors briefly describe the “documented methodologies” and add references.

Line 339-340: Can author provide more explanation about why the different clay minerals can affect the significant change of particle acidity?

Line 343-343: It is very interesting to see the difference in particle acidity between dark reaction and photoreaction, are they statistically different?  Can author discuss why the CCa has the lowest pH among all the different types of clay minerals?

Line 373-374: Earlier authors assert that the sulfate formation is more during nighttime and less during the daytime, but this statement is opposite and confusing. Can the author clarify this?

Line 380-390: In addition to the temperature dependence, did the authors consider the change of relative humidity during the day and night can also contribute to the heterogeneous chemistry reaction with sulfate?

Line 391-393: This sentence “Relative to … heterogeneous chemistries by …” does not make sense, please rephrase/refine the sentence.

Figure 5: Can author provide some discussion about the trend shown in Figure 5? Why would it show a dip in sulfate formation rate at pH 5 and more sulfate at higher pH?

Figure 10 Line 558-559: Can author explain why the O₂ affects SO₂ oxidation over pH <4 and why is it starting to decrease after pH 4?