Amazon Natural Fibers for Application in Engineering Composites and Sustainable Actions: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Presented article "Amazon Natural Fibers for Application in Engineering Composites and Sustainable Actions: A Review" by Pedro Henrique Poubel Mendonça Da Silveira, Bruno Figueira de Abreu Ferreira Cardoso, Belayne Zanini Marchi and Sergio Neves Monteiro is a very well written research paper, it represents a high-quality review work. For sure this paper may be accepted for publication, but after some  minor improvements in the quality of material provided.

1) Line 257: "gholampour2020review, faruk2012biocomposites" - what is this? This should be a part of references or what?

2) Line 266: "sood2018effect" again, what is this?

3) Figures 3,6,9: low resolution of pictures and inscriptions on them. I understand, that these are reprints, but if the quality can be improved it would be nice

Author Response

Reviewer #1

Presented article "Amazon Natural Fibers for Application in Engineering Composites and Sustainable Actions: A Review" by Pedro Henrique Poubel Mendonça Da Silveira, Bruno Figueira de Abreu Ferreira Cardoso, Belayne Zanini Marchi and Sergio Neves Monteiro is a very well written research paper, it represents a high-quality review work. For sure this paper may be accepted for publication, but after some  minor improvements in the quality of material provided.

Response: We sincerely appreciate your evaluation and consideration of our manuscript. Receiving positive feedback from an expert in our field is of utmost importance to us, as it not only motivates us but also propels us to persist in the continuous production of scientific works, both experimental and review-based. Your recognition reinforces our commitment to scientific research and inspires us to keep contributing to the advancement of knowledge in our discipline. Once again, we thank you for your valuable support and encouragement.

1) Line 257: "gholampour2020review, faruk2012biocomposites" - what is this? This should be a part of references or what?

Response: The error occurred due to the formatting of the manuscript in the LaTeX system. When referencing, it is necessary to include the reference code, which is \cite{}, and within the curly braces, the reference code should be added. For some reason, it was not done, and only the code appeared. In the new version of the manuscript, this simple error has been corrected.

2) Line 266: "sood2018effect" again, what is this?

3) Figures 3,6,9: low resolution of pictures and inscriptions on them. I understand, that these are reprints, but if the quality can be improved it would be nice

Response: We apologize for not being able to address this correction. Unfortunately, the image quality in our work is a result of the images extracted from the articles in which they were originally published. In Figure 3, we were able to improve the quality slightly by saving it from the PDF of the article, as the version available on the page had low quality. The authors of these works published with relatively low-quality images, preventing us from using high-quality images. We could have recreated the graphs in Figure 9 if the authors of this work had included tables with the values. However, they only provided the graphs.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper compares different machine learning method in the classification and recognition of selected species of microstructure. However, the whole manuscript is too long and has many unnecessary descriptions, which needs to be revised. Therefore, I suggest this manuscript for publication in Eng Journal after major revision. Some suggestions are displayed as detailed below:

 

1. Lines 18-41 use many words to introduce the history of vegetable fiber production, which is not necessary and needs to be revised.

 

2. Fig. 2 should be improved and the words in the Figure are too small.

 

3. Lines 157 to 168, the description of Fig. 3 are not enough simple and clear.

 

4. Lines 236 to 243, “Para melhorar as propriedades das fibras naturais……promovem melhorias nas pro-priedades.”  These sentences are not English.

 

5. Line 257 exists English mistake. Many places exist similar mistakes, and please carefully check the manuscript.

 

6. Lines 561 to 571 can be deleted, and you do not need use one paragraph to describe the TG test.

 

7. You must add some Tables to make a conclusion about the ten plant fibers from the Amazon region, including their production process, economic value and application.

 

8. Line 815 exists grammatical mistakes.

 

9. In the final remarks and conclusions section, the authors should add the potential industry in which the Amazon nature fibers have an increasing application.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English writing must be improved.

Author Response

Reviewer #2

This paper compares different machine learning method in the classification and recognition of selected species of microstructure. However, the whole manuscript is too long and has many unnecessary descriptions, which needs to be revised. Therefore, I suggest this manuscript for publication in Eng Journal after major revision. Some suggestions are displayed as detailed below:

 

1. Lines 18-41 use many words to introduce the history of vegetable fiber production, which is not necessary and needs to be revised.

 Response: We appreciate the suggestion. We have corrected this passage, making it shorter and easy to read.

2. Fig. 2 should be improved and the words in the Figure are too small.

 Response: The quality of Figure 2 is high. The Lucidchart website was used to create the figure, and it has a resolution of 300 dpi. Regarding font size, it was increased for better readability. The image could be enlarged to enhance readability if the layout team could make space within the manuscript.

3. Lines 157 to 168, the description of Fig. 3 are not enough simple and clear.

 Response: Thank you for the suggestion. We have revised the caption for Figure 3, making it clearer. In the new version of the manuscript, this section is highlighted in yellow.

4. Lines 236 to 243, “Para melhorar as propriedades das fibras naturais……promovem melhorias nas pro-priedades.”  These sentences are not English.

 Response: We apologize for the error. In the midst of an extensive manuscript, some mistakes went unnoticed, such as this passage in Portuguese. However, in the new version, it has already been translated into English.

5. Line 257 exists English mistake. Many places exist similar mistakes, and please carefully check the manuscript.

 Response: Once again, we apologize for the error. When referencing in LaTeX, we used the \cite{} command, within which the reference code should be inserted. For some reason, the command didn't work, and only the code appeared. In the new version of the manuscript, these details have been corrected.

6. Lines 561 to 571 can be deleted, and you do not need use one paragraph to describe the TG test.

 Response: We have removed all information regarding the TGA results. However, from line 568 to 571, the discussion has been retained as the properties obtained from XRD analysis are crucial for selecting fibers as engineering reinforcement. These characteristics include crystallinity, microfibrillar angle, and crystallite size.

7. You must add some Tables to make a conclusion about the ten plant fibers from the Amazon region, including their production process, economic value and application.

 Response: We appreciate the valuable suggestion regarding the table. The idea of compiling the results of the fibers is indeed excellent. However, the creation of a table with the results, whether related to properties, economic value, or applications, is not currently feasible. This is due to many characteristics that have not yet been processed or are not applicable, given the wide variety of plant species that these fibers encompass, such as açaí and tucum.

As for economic values, most of these fibers remain unknown in the mainstream scientific scenario, leading to limited research and, consequently, a lack of disclosure of these values. The challenging access to certain regions of the Amazon also hinders obtaining this information.

We hope that, with the acceptance of this work, the topic will be more widely disseminated, allowing other researchers to fill the gaps in the literature that, up to this point, have remained open.

8. Line 815 exists grammatical mistakes.

Response: Corrected in the manuscript

 

9. In the final remarks and conclusions section, the authors should add the potential industry in which the Amazon nature fibers have an increasing application.

Response: In the new version of the manuscript, we have added a section discussing the potential application of Amazonian natural fibers in the industry.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The idea of the manuscript is to bring uncommon natural fibers - from Amazon to the scientific community for composite applications. The authors have put forward different fibers and their potential to be used in composite applications. Even though many of these fibers are local to the Amazon region - the knowledge on these fibers are important to learn about different lignocellulosic fibers. Currently, there are number of review papers based commonly used natural fibers and their use in composites. But there are no review paper that focuses specially on Amazon region based fibers. The authors have compared the commonly mentioned natural fibers to Amazon fibers to some extent. They have used many references to support their work and used appropriate fibers and tables. The manuscript in its current version is clear for the reader. One should consider that it is no addressing a specific knowledge gap - rather giving additional information about the lignocellulosic sources. The scientific community can definitely thrive without the information but it is nice to see different sources. There will definitely be some audience for this review manuscript.

 

Nice to see many lignocellulosic fibers from Amazon in one review paper.

Author Response

Reviewer #3

 

The idea of the manuscript is to bring uncommon natural fibers - from Amazon to the scientific community for composite applications. The authors have put forward different fibers and their potential to be used in composite applications. Even though many of these fibers are local to the Amazon region - the knowledge on these fibers are important to learn about different lignocellulosic fibers. Currently, there are number of review papers based commonly used natural fibers and their use in composites. But there are no review paper that focuses specially on Amazon region based fibers. The authors have compared the commonly mentioned natural fibers to Amazon fibers to some extent. They have used many references to support their work and used appropriate fibers and tables. The manuscript in its current version is clear for the reader. One should consider that it is no addressing a specific knowledge gap - rather giving additional information about the lignocellulosic sources. The scientific community can definitely thrive without the information but it is nice to see different sources. There will definitely be some audience for this review manuscript.

Nice to see many lignocellulosic fibers from Amazon in one review paper.

 

Response: We appreciate the evaluation and comments on our manuscript. When we decided to undertake the writing of this review, we were fully aware of the consolidation of the natural fibers field in materials science and engineering, among other disciplines. However, we identified a significant gap in the literature regarding Amazonian fibers, except for brief mentions in experimental studies. Throughout the manuscript, we aimed to provide a comprehensive context, covering the history, characteristics, properties, and applications of fibers before delving specifically into Amazonian fibers. Our goal was to give the reader a basic foundation throughout the text.

 

For readers seeking a more in-depth understanding of fibers, we recommend consulting other more specialized articles, some of which are referenced throughout the text. Our intention was to present some of the existing fibers used in Brazil. Due to the country's rich diversity, numerous fibers with great potential remain underexplored and unknown. We focused on the main ones, although we encountered challenges in finding specific publications on certain fibers. The ubim fiber, for example, exemplifies this difficulty, with the only available reports being produced by some of the authors of this review. Thus, this work was an extensive and challenging endeavor, aiming to provide the scientific community with a fresh perspective on natural fibers beyond what is already known.

 

Once again, we thank you for the feedback on the manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript has been revised and improved, and I suggest to accept it for publication.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English Language has been improved.