External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems—Past and Future in a Sustainable Urban Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

(1) In Section 2.1, the literature on ETICS composites is not sufficiently reviewed, with only a small number of reviews available. It is recommended that the authors include additional papers, particularly regarding how to monitor the biodegradation of ETICS composites, such as in structures (The Current Development of Structural Health Monitoring for Bridges - A Review).

(2) Line 199: The distribution of microorganisms should have similar literature available. It is recommended that the author provide additional references on this topic.

(3) The authors state that the research emphasizes the negative environmental impact of ETICS composites. In severe cases, could this impact affect structural safety, potentially causing damage to components or even leading to building collapse? Please clarify this issue (Dilemmas and Solutions of Sustainability-Based Engineering Ethics: Lessons Learned from the Collapse of Self-Built House in Changsha, Hunan, China).

(4) Sections 3 and 4 could be merged, and the summary section can be appropriately simplified.

(5) Lines 253-256: Why do the two sections draw the same conclusion? The authors should verify this. Additionally, should “the reviews studies” be corrected to “the case study”?

Author Response

See the attachment 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

SUMMARY

The article submitted for review is relevant to the modern issue of sustainable development. It discusses ETX composites, identifies the past and future of urban sustainability, reviews existing literature, and presents a real case study.

This article is interesting because it reflects the past, present, and future of a sustainable urban environment. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the construction industry has a significant impact on the sustainable development of the planet. Issues of heat engineering and energy are important. At the same time, composite materials, such as external thermal insulation composite systems ETICS, are in demand in the urban environment. However, there are research challenges related to the problem of biocorrosion of the outer shell of ETICS, as well as the problem of indoor microclimate.

The authors demonstrated, based on a literature review and real case studies, that environmentally friendly building materials require an interdisciplinary approach. This article contributes to the discussion of microorganisms in ETICS composites. Thus, the article touches upon the issues of sustainable development, materials science, construction.

This study is interdisciplinary and interesting. It may be useful for readers of Sustainability because it is novel and significant. However, the reviewer has some fundamental criticisms regarding the structure and presentation of the article. They are listed below. They need to be corrected.

 

COMMENTS

1. The authors should work on the title. Perhaps, it is necessary to remove the mention of a literature review and a case study from the title. The fact is that this article is not so voluminous to talk about a full literature review on the research topic. The authors analyzed 41 sources. This is not enough to state in the title "Literature Review". Rather, this article is more like a "Case Study" type of research. Therefore, it is advisable to remove the last part of the title, leaving only "Composites ETICS – Past and Future in a Sustainable Urban Environment".

2. The authors formulated the scientific problem in the abstract, but did not formulate the scientific result. The authors need to inform at the end of the abstract not about what they want to show, but about what they have already done and shown. The last two phrases in the abstract should be reformulated and the result of this article should be clarified.

3. The keywords "Energy", "Sustainability" and "Environment" look incorrect. These are general terms that apply to almost any article on sustainable development. The authors need to suggest some other words.

4. The Introduction section does not look like a full-fledged literature review. It needs to be significantly expanded. The authors should provide a detailed overview of the current state of the problem. The literature review provided in Section 2.1 is also not good enough. In total, the Introduction and 2.1 Literature Review sections include 34 sources of literature. This is not enough yet. These sections look unconvincing.

5. The structure of the article looks complicated due to the fact that a literature review is declared as one of the goals of the study. The authors need to think about how to more correctly formulate their literature review, methodology, and result.

6. The graphs in Figures 3 and 4 do not look very logical. It would be more logical to provide a bar chart here.

7. The principle of choosing the scale of the abscissa axis is unclear. The authors state different time intervals, but the intervals between the points remain the same. This is illogical. The authors need to maintain the chronological parameter of the scale.

8. In general, there are comments on the graphical presentation in the article. The results, unfortunately, do not look informative. They are more like short theses and conclusions. They need to be described in more detail and analyzed.

9. The discussion section is very weak and very concise. The authors should have provided a detailed comparison of the results obtained with the results of other authors here. But this was not done.

10. The conclusions section is also not structured. It is necessary to consistently provide the scientific result, the applied result, and the prospects for the development of the research in the future. At the moment, this is not observed.

11. The list of references, as already mentioned, needs to be significantly increased. Currently, it states 41 sources of literature, but at least 65-70 sources should have been provided here. A lot of research has been devoted to issues of the urban environment and sustainable development, as well as building materials to ensure these parameters, but the authors provided only a few of them.

While this article does not appear to be ready for publication, major revisions are required based on the comments made. The reviewer believes that all comments are critical and need to be corrected. After all comments have been corrected, the reviewer would like to take another look at the article to make a final decision. Overall conclusion – Major Revisions.

Author Response

See the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have significantly improved this article compared to the previous version. The article is now more suitable for publication in the journal. The reviewer no longer has any significant comments on this manuscript.