Fast-Growing Magnetic Wood Synthesis by an In-Situ Method

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this work, author said that the purpose of this study was to analyze NaOH and NH4OH in synthesizing and characterizing magnetic jabon wood. This innovation is not enough to be published in Polymers journal. A very large number of papers have reported on the study of magnetic wood. Of course, no one has studied the use of Jabon as a substrate.

Prof. Burgert reported on a magnetic wood−nanocomposite hybrid material, which is not only directional in terms of structural and mechanical properties, but also features magnetic anisotropy dictated by the intrinsic wood architecture. Using an in situ fabrication approach they were able to control the final iron oxide content through in-depth penetration of ferric and ferrous ions and ferrite precipitation within hardwood and softwood matrices (ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2014, 6, 9760−9767).

Prof. Zhu reported the fabrication of magnetic wood based on the in situ deposition of magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles into a delignified wood template through an inorganic mineralization method that endows the woodblock with favorable appearance as well as magnetic and EMI shielding properties (10.1002/adem.202000257).

Prof. Gan has developed a range of versatile magnetic woods, such as CoFe2O4/wood (with microwave absorption, anti-ultraviolet properties and suphydrophobicity), transparent magnetic wood,  CoFe₂O₄@hydroxyapatite/wood, Fe3O4/wood (as an effective induction heating materials, ), Fe₃O₄/γ-Fe₂O₃ (wirh with improved anti-ultraviolet property and dimensional stability)10.1039/C5RA06138E; 10.1016/j.ceramint.2016.05.112; 10.1002/admi.201700777; 10.1016/j.ceramint.2015.08.014; 10.1016/j.apsusc.2015.01.206; 10.1007/s10853-016-0619-8. 

There are also many other related studies, such as a microwave-assisted route to prepare magnetic wood (10.1039/C7TC05849G), Fe₃O₄/wood composite prepared by in situ chemosynthesis at room temperature (10.1179/175355511X13240279339806)

Merely discussing the preparation process of magnetic wood and its basic properties is not enough to interest the readers. We hope that the submitted manuscript can bring innovative research to the readers in Polymers. 

Author Response

COVER LETTER

Reviewer 1

 

Thank you very much for reviewers’ suggestions and corrections to our manuscript.  We have made some changes and revisions according to reviewers’ suggestions.  Our responds to each reviewer suggestions have been made also (represented by sentences in blue colour in this letter)

 

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this work, author said that the purpose of this study was to analyze NaOH and NH4OH in synthesizing and characterizing magnetic jabon wood. This innovation is not enough to be published in Polymers journal. A very large number of papers have reported on the study of magnetic wood. Of course, no one has studied the use of Jabon as a substrate.

In our opinion, our research has some novelties. There are,

1. Feasibility of producing wood magnetic from fast growing wood such as jabon (line 44-46)
2. The utilization of simple and practical in-situ method (without any modification) (line 59-60)
3. The utilization of strong base (NaOH) as precursor in-situ method, that resulted (line-67-75)

• NaOH consumption for in-situ method was less than NH4OH
• Smaller nano magnetite
• Faster production period of nano magnetite
• Similar wood properties if compared to untreated samples (line 195-197)

Prof. Burgert reported on a magnetic wood−nanocomposite hybrid material, which is not only directional in terms of structural and mechanical properties, but also features magnetic anisotropy dictated by the intrinsic wood architecture. Using an in-situ fabrication approach they were able to control the final iron oxide content through in-depth penetration of ferric and ferrous ions and ferrite precipitation within hardwood and softwood matrices (ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2014, 6, 9760−9767).

Thank you for your suggestion and guidance. We have citated it in our manuscript

Prof. Zhu reported the fabrication of magnetic wood based on the in-situ deposition of magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles into a delignified wood template through an inorganic mineralization method that endows the woodblock with favorable appearance as well as magnetic and EMI shielding properties (10.1002/adem.202000257).

Thank you for your suggestion and guidance. We have citated it in our manuscript

Prof. Gan has developed a range of versatile magnetic woods, such as CoFe2O4/wood (with microwave absorption, anti-ultraviolet properties and suphydrophobicity), transparent magnetic wood,  CoFe₂O₄@hydroxyapatite/wood, Fe3O4/wood (as an effective induction heating materials, ), Fe₃O₄/γ-Fe₂O₃ (wirh with improved anti-ultraviolet property and dimensional stability)10.1039/C5RA06138E; 10.1016/j.ceramint.2016.05.112; 10.1002/admi.201700777; 10.1016/j.ceramint.2015.08.014; 10.1016/j.apsusc.2015.01.206; 10.1007/s10853-016-0619-8. 

Thank you for your suggestion and guidance. We have citated them in our manuscript

There are also many other related studies, such as a microwave-assisted route to prepare magnetic wood (10.1039/C7TC05849G), Fe₃O₄/wood composite prepared by in situ chemosynthesis at room temperature (10.1179/175355511X13240279339806)

Thank you for your suggestion and guidance. We have citated them in our manuscript

Merely discussing the preparation process of magnetic wood and its basic properties is not enough to interest the readers. We hope that the submitted manuscript can bring innovative research to the readers in Polymers. 

Thank you for your advice and suggestions. We have revised our manuscript. We have highlighted our novelties. We hope our revisions could meet your requirements.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is pverall interesting in an important field. However there are some major issues:

1) The clear novelty is not well-highlighted in the paper to understand the real difference from other papers.

2) The English language is very poor in some parts with manby mistakes and connot be further followed.

3) The discussion is poor. Extensive analysis is recommended with more in number comparisons with literature.

4) The Equations must be numbered (i.e 102, 121, 186, 282, etc)

5) L.201-210: References should be added for explanations.

6) L.327-337: References should be added for explanations.

Author Response

COVER LETTER

Reviewer 2

 

Thank you very much for reviewers’ suggestions and corrections to our manuscript.  We have made some changes and revisions according to reviewers’ suggestions.  Our responds to each reviewer suggestions have been made also (represented by sentences in blue colour in this letter)

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is overall interesting in an important field. However, there are some major issues:

1) The clear novelty is not well-highlighted in the paper to understand the real difference from other papers.

We have revised our manuscript and have highlighted our novelties. There are,

1. Feasibility of producing wood magnetic from fast growing wood such as jabon (line 44-46)
2. The utilization of simple and practical in-situ method (without any modification) (line 59-60)
3. The utilization of strong base (NaOH) as precursor in-situ method, that resulted (line-67-75)

• NaOH consumption for in-situ method was less than NH4OH
• Smaller nano magnetite
• Faster production period of nano magnetite
• Similar wood properties if compared to untreated samples (line 195-197)

2) The English language is very poor in some parts with many mistakes and con not be further followed.

Our manuscript has been read and reviewed by native speaker (we attached the letter from our native speaker)

3) The discussion is poor. Extensive analysis is recommended with more in number comparisons with literature.

We have added some discussion and some literature to support it (see results and discussion sections)

4) The Equations must be numbered (i.e 102, 121, 186, 282, etc)

We have added numbers to our equations (see material and method and results sections)

5) L.201-210: References should be added for explanations.

We have added some literatures to our discussions (see line 226-229)

L 367-379

We have added some literatures to our discussions (see line 419-421)

6) L.327-337: References should be added for explanations.

We have added some literatures to our discussions (see line 349-364)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript entitled ‘Fast-Growing Magnetic Wood Synthesis by an In-Situ Method’ presents an interesting original solution analyzed through several key techniques.

The downloaded version of the paper already contains many corrections (in tracking version mode). Quoted line numbers refer to this version (v2).

Merits

The methods contain complete information and are clear and understandable. The results are presented in a readable form and are comprehensive. The discussion is also well grounded in the literature that supports the results obtained.

Critique and suggestions

I have included only minor comments and suggestions below.

In the introduction, I suggest adding information about the share of Jabon wood in the total harvested wood (e.g. in%). This species is unknown in many countries and it is worth showing its importance by presenting the amount of harvested wood. If the amount is too small to be included in the statistics, it is also worth mentioning.

Please consider posting the following reference into discussion in the context of dimensional stability and chemical treatment of Jabon wood.

Anne Hadiyane, Rudi Dungani, Susana Paulina Dewi and Alfi Rumidatul, 2018. Effect of Chemical Modification of Jabon Wood (Anthocephalus cadamba Miq.) on Morphological Structure and Dimensional Stability. Journal of Biological Sciences, 18: 201-207.

Details

347 WPG values were linearly correlated to Ms Values (Table 3)… Table 3 does not show correlations but only M_s, M_r, and H_c values.

347-348 The higher the WPG values, the higher The MS values… Ms values are almost identical in Table 3, so there can be no correlation. Such a correlation is indeed presented by Gao [31] in his paper, but here (in this paper submitted for review) there is no data to confirm or reject it.

In lines 347 and 362 it says 'Ms' (upper case, lower case), in line 348 'MS' (upper case), in other places it says 'M_s' (upper case, subscript), please align the notation as these symbols create confusion.

152 In addition the diameter of pits was measured as supporting data… For what purpose were the pits measured since they were not mentioned in the paper. If these measurements were not used in the work, then they should not be written about, and if they were useful, then they should be written for what purpose. ImageJ allows advanced anatomical measurements, but there is no such information in the results.

Formula 1, 2 and 3 (l. 118, 123 and 128) use square brackets, while formula 4 (l. 132), built according to the same construction, does not use them. Please standardize the appearance of the formulas because mathematically, it is the same thing.

I am not a native English speaker, but I believe that the paper, because of the many corrections, should be reviewed for language.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewers’ suggestions and corrections to our manuscript.  We have made some changes and revisions according to reviewers’ suggestions.  Our responds to each reviewer suggestions have been made also (represented by sentences in blue colour in this letter)

Reviewer 3

The manuscript entitled ‘Fast-Growing Magnetic Wood Synthesis by an In-Situ Method’ presents an interesting original solution analysed through several key techniques.

The downloaded version of the paper already contains many corrections (in tracking version mode). Quoted line numbers refer to this version (v2).

Merits

The methods contain complete information and are clear and understandable. The results are presented in a readable form and are comprehensive. The discussion is also well grounded in the literature that supports the results obtained.

Critique and suggestions

I have included only minor comments and suggestions below.

In the introduction, I suggest adding information about the share of Jabon wood in the total harvested wood (e.g. in%). This species is unknown in many countries and it is worth showing its importance by presenting the amount of harvested wood. If the amount is too small to be included in the statistics, it is also worth mentioning.

We have added the information regarding jabon’s production on 2019 (see line 38-39)

Please consider posting the following reference into discussion in the context of dimensional stability and chemical treatment of Jabon wood.

Anne Hadiyane, Rudi Dungani, Susana Paulina Dewi and Alfi Rumidatul, 2018. Effect of Chemical Modification of Jabon Wood (Anthocephalus cadamba Miq.) on Morphological Structure and Dimensional Stability. Journal of Biological Sciences, 18: 201-207.

We have added the reference in discussion in the context of dimensional stability and chemical treatment of jabon wood (see line 415)

Details

347 WPG values were linearly correlated to Ms Values (Table 3)… Table 3 does not show correlations but only M_s, M_r, and H_c values.

347-348 The higher the WPG values, the higher The MS values… Ms values are almost identical in Table 3, so there can be no correlation. Such a correlation is indeed presented by Gao [31] in his paper, but here (in this paper submitted for review) there is no data to confirm or reject it.

We have added Figure 6, to present correlation between weight percent gain (WPG) and saturation magnetization (Ms) of treated jabon wood

In lines 347 and 362 it says 'Ms' (upper case, lower case), in line 348 'MS' (upper case), in other places it says 'M_s' (upper case, subscript), please align the notation as these symbols create confusion.

We have revised MS (in line 348), please check line 377

152 In addition the diameter of pits was measured as supporting data… For what purpose were the pits measured since they were not mentioned in the paper. If these measurements were not used in the work, then they should not be written about, and if they were useful, then they should be written for what purpose. ImageJ allows advanced anatomical measurements, but there is no such information in the results.

We have deleted that sentence

Formula 1, 2 and 3 (l. 118, 123 and 128) use square brackets, while formula 4 (l. 132), built according to the same construction, does not use them. Please standardize the appearance of the formulas because mathematically, it is the same thing.

We have revised the appearances of the formulas

I am not a native English speaker, but I believe that the paper, because of the many corrections, should be reviewed for language.

The revised manuscript has been read by our native speaker before submitted

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Accept in present form.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewers’ suggestions and corrections to our manuscript

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

All my comments of the initial submission have been correctly replied and included in the 
revised manuscript. The quality of this work has been drastically improved after revision and 
therefore I recommend its publication as it is.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewers’ suggestions and corrections to our manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf