Crack-Resistant Amino Resin Flame-Retardant Coatings Using Waterborne Polyurethane as a Co-Binder Resin
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript can be accepted for publication after some changes as suggested below:
1) there are grammatical errors, incomplete sentences, and typos throughout the manuscript, they should be corrected by a professional English speaker.
2) Error-values should be provided for all data presented in different tables.
3) It is not clear, how thick were the coatings, it should be clearly mentioned
4) long term durability of the coatings should be measured and included in the manuscript
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors of the study presented research on the influence of the flexible
waterborne polyurethane addtion on the cracking of the flame-retardant coating.
The research is focused mainly on microstructural and phisical properties of
the coating. The research seems to be reasonably well performed, but some
points need to be addressed.
All the text. Please check how's the Celsius degrees are written. In some
places the degree sign should be changed to the upper index. e.g. page 3
subsection 2.3.5. "... on steel (80 mm × 80 mm × 2 mm) at 800 oC in a muffle
furnace... "
In the case of the attached graphs, their size should be increased to increase
the readability of especially Figures: 4, 5, 6, 8,9 and 10.
In the case of the tested coatings, were also scratch tests performed? If not,
it would be worth supplementing the submitted studies with such a study.
The results show that the use of WPU reduces the cracking tendency of the
applied layers, and at the same time reduces the refractoriness of these
coatings, with the emission of poisonous vapors during the test. Please comment
on whether the amount of such vapors has been tested and whether the use of WPU
will significantly affect the safety of people in the vicinity of elements
covered with such coatings during the fire.
In the case of SEM images, characteristic areas should be indicated, which
would definitely facilitate the interpretation of the results.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper from He et al. investigates the use of a flexible waterborne PU in an intumescent FR formulation based on melamine-modified urea-formaldehyde resin, in order to increase the crack resistance of the latter. The paper is quite well written but the conclusions should be better supported by the experimental results, which are not impressive.
Some comments and suggestions are listed as follows:
- it could be useful to perform TG analyses also in nitrogen, thus assessing the thermal stability of the IFR
- Table 1: please- re-organize the table with Tonset, Tmax, residue at Tmax values and residues at the end of the test
- Table 3: smoke parameters are completely missing
- the overall English is acceptable, though some typo errors should be corrected
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Have a look my comments
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript can be accepted after some english corrections.
Author Response
Thanks a lot for the reviewer's comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors of the study presented research on the influence of the flexible waterborne polyurethane addtion on the cracking of the flame-retardant coating. The research is focused mainly on microstructural and phisical properties of the coating. The research seems to be reasonably well performed, but some points need to be addressed.
The authors took into account the proposed changes and the work may be published in its current form.
Author Response
Thanks a lot for the reviewer's comments. Some changes have been modified.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have revised the manuscript according to the Reviewer's comments and suggestions; therefore, the manuscript is now suitable for publication in its present form.
Author Response
Thanks a lot for the reviewer's comments.
Reviewer 4 Report
Hey,
You did say nothing about the recommended references either you have to add or write any objection
Author Response
Sorry for the absence of the comments about the references. The adviced references are about the PU as a binder to change the mechanical properties of the films, which are related to this topic. So the references have been added into this paper as No.17 and 18 references.
