Environmental Impact Assessment of Anti-Corrosion Coating Life Cycle Processes for Marine Applications
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsSummary:
The article uses the LCA methodology to assess the environmental impact of the life cycle processes of alkyd coating for marine applications. A comparison with an uncoated system and a sensitivity analysis were performed. The article has scientific novelty and practical significance, but needs to be revised. When applying LCA, it is necessary to be as detailed as possible and rely on a systematic approach in research. But there are many inaccuracies in the research, which are explained below.
Research methodology comments:
1. The topic should be clarified. Despite the fact that LCA is a well-known methodology, the term "Life cycle assessment" can be understood in different ways. I recommend the following: "Environmental Impact Assessment of Alkyd Coating Life Cycle Processes for Marine Applications".
2. I recommend analyzing more papers related to the analysis of the impact of alkyd coatings on the environment. Such papers can easily be found on sciencedirect.com using the keywords "alkyd environmental impact". Example:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.04.027
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.porgcoat.2023.107734
3. The work [29] is a collection, so it is necessary to indicate the section that describes the approach used by the authors (line 92).
4. Justify the choice of LCA analysis tools (like GaBi) and datasets.
5. Explain in more detail LCIA and CML (94-95) and give references.
6. It should be explained why the authors did not consider such stages as extraction of raw materials and disposal.
7. I recommend replacing "repair and maintenance span" with "mean time between repair and maintenance".
8. System1 is uncoated steel (86). It is not entirely clear to the reader in which cases uncoated steel is used for marine applications. The technological process for System1 should be described in more detail. And also, to explain in more detail how it is possible to reduce the impact of System2 compared to System1, if System2 also includes uncoated steel in the first stages.
9. I believe that the conclusion "the coated system demonstrated a 46% decrement in the total environmental impact compared to the uncoated system" needs clarification. What impact categories are taken into account?
Specific comments:
10. Missing reference at line 100.
11. "1liter" (150, 153).
12. The "Application" stage is better called "Coating process" (Fig. 2).
13. Instead of reference [30] I recommend to make a URL to the official documentation or a related paper.
14. The references should be compiled in accordance with the requirements: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions
Author Response
13th June 2024
Re: Resubmission of manuscript
Reference: Sustainability-3045553
Dear Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We appreciate the careful review and constructive suggestions. It is our belief that the manuscript is substantially improved after making the suggested edits.
Following this letter are the editor and reviewer comments with our responses in italics, including how and where the text was modified. Changes made in the manuscript are marked using red color. We are thankful to reviewers for their valuable suggestions. All the comments have been addressed and incorporated in the manuscript. A list of changes against each point raised by the reviewers is provided.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Dr. Avinash Borgaonkar
Post doctoral research fellow,
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering,
Dublin City University, Dublin 09, Ireland.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. How are corrosion tests on specimens conducted, how are the test conditions set, and on what basis are they set?
2. What is the principle of life cycle assessment? How to determine the degree of coating failure?
3. It is recommended to cite more articles related to corrosion and aging of coatings.
Comments on the Quality of English Language1. How are corrosion tests on specimens conducted, how are the test conditions set, and on what basis are they set?
2. What is the principle of life cycle assessment? How to determine the degree of coating failure?
3. It is recommended to cite more articles related to corrosion and aging of coatings.
Author Response
13th June 2024
Re: Resubmission of manuscript
Reference: Sustainability-3045553
Dear Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We appreciate the careful review and constructive suggestions. It is our belief that the manuscript is substantially improved after making the suggested edits.
Following this letter are the editor and reviewer comments with our responses in italics, including how and where the text was modified. Changes made in the manuscript are marked using red color. We are thankful to reviewers for their valuable suggestions. All the comments have been addressed and incorporated in the manuscript. A list of changes against each point raised by the reviewers is provided.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Dr. Avinash Borgaonkar
Post doctoral research fellow,
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering,
Dublin City University, Dublin 09, Ireland.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsEnd of the Paragraph 2.1.1. Error! Reference source not found. I guess, authors should carefully check all the references, numeration of figures and tables.
Figure 2. There are misprints.
Table 3. I guess, unit "(Kg)" should be placed in the second column.
There is Table 4 by itself, but there is no table 4 caption as well as reference to table 4 within the text. This should be corrected.
Fig. 3 is named as fig. 1.
Fig. 3 represents experimental results, but there are no confidence intervals. This should be corrected or at least there should be an explanation, what statistical significance corresponds to obtained data.
The same is for figs. 4 and 5.
Conclusion is written in general words. I would recommend authors to rewrite it.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are misprints within the text and in figures.
Author Response
13th June 2024
Re: Resubmission of manuscript
Reference: Sustainability-3045553
Dear Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We appreciate the careful review and constructive suggestions. It is our belief that the manuscript is substantially improved after making the suggested edits.
Following this letter are the editor and reviewer comments with our responses in italics, including how and where the text was modified. Changes made in the manuscript are marked using red color. We are thankful to reviewers for their valuable suggestions. All the comments have been addressed and incorporated in the manuscript. A list of changes against each point raised by the reviewers is provided.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Dr. Avinash Borgaonkar
Post doctoral research fellow,
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering,
Dublin City University, Dublin 09, Ireland.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe main comments are taken into account by the authors, but:
Kilogram (kg) is written in lowercase letters (176, 178, 181, 226...)
Again an error on line 140: Error! Reference source not found.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsNo.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageNo.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThere are still misprints within the text.
Figure 3 is still named as fig. 1 (label in line 222, p. 7).
There is still wrong reference to figure 1: "Error! Reference source not found.. " (line 140 in p. 4).
Authors are recommended to read all the text carefully one more time.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are misprints within the text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
