Impacting Factors of Changes in Dynamic Viscosity and Interfacial Tension of Wood Xylem Sap

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper has nice results, and is written well. I have the following comments.

 

1. Please explain “negative pressure” in line 40

2. Expand DBH in line 89. All abbreviations should be defined when used for the first time.

3. Line 102: pH - the p should be lowercase

4. Expand the abbreviations in line 162

5. The vertical axis in figures 2 and 8 can end at 0.4 since all data is within this range - it need not be extended till 0.6

6. Pl discuss why the viscosity is lowest in Aug in fig.4

7. In lines 213-217, you report the viscosity values to 5 significant digits - is this level of accuracy guaranteed in your measurements?

8. Fig. 6 - interfacial tension for pure water is generally close to 72 mN/m. Could you explain why you obtain tensions higher/lower than this expected value throughout the year?

9. The viscosity (fig. 4) and tension (fig 6.) are lowest in August, whereas the sap velocity is highest in August (fig. 7). Can you explain this correlation?

10. Explanations in lines 295-300 are not clear. Please elaborate.

 

Minor improvements required. 

Author Response

Please see our response in the uploaded file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The current manuscript titled “Analysis of dynamic viscosity and interfacial tension of wood xylem sap” by Wen et al., presents interesting results for interpretation of monthly variation in dynamic viscosity and interfacial tension in Poplar and Metasequoia trees. However, the current the manuscript has following concerns:

In Figure 10 the fitted equation are not correct with low R square values especially in (c). Was the data measured in triplicates? The error bars should be introduced.

Error bars should be introduced in data of Figure 9. How do the authors explain such variation in data?

 

Please change the title of the study, signifying the major outline of current work

Please remove the word dynamic viscosity from keywords as it is already in the title

Line 55-57: Please avoid using interrogatory words in the sentence.

Line 58-64: This portion of the introduction can be removed.

Please clearly write the novelty and importance of current work.

Section 2.1: Authors need to clearly mention the details of the poplar and Metasequoia tress used in the study. Statements like good growth conditions, same ages, slight difference in tree height should be omitted and exact details of growth conditions should be mentioned. Please also discuss how dynamic viscosity and interfacial tension vary in softwood and hardwood systems.

Line 93-95: Please add reference.

The current study is conducted in the subtropical monsoon climate zone with abundant role and acidic. Please add discussion on the variation in soil pH on dynamic viscosity and interfacial tension.

Line 102: Please correct PH as pH

Line 106: Please mention the brand of microscope used and the resolution used to take the images. Please also add microscopic images either in the manuscript or supplementary materials of the work.

Line 152-153: “The interfacial tension of liquid was measured by an automatic droplet contact angle measuring instrument.” Please mention the instrument used to measuring interfacial tension. Also, please write the method for measuring the interfacial tension more clearly.

Line 164: “the sample was tested”, please clearly write the methodology part of manuscript.

There are several grammatical, formatting and language errors in the manuscript. Please correct.

Please combine figure 4 and figure 5 as a single figure.

 

 

Authors should thoroughly read the manuscript for grammatical errors and highlight them

Author Response

Please see our response in the uploaded file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No further comments

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Thanks for your suggestion. We have made the revision in the manuscript highlighted as red.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have revised the manuscript appropriately

Authors have improved it.

Author Response

Thanks for your appreciation.