A Review: Thin Protective Coating for Wear Protection in High-Temperature Application
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper is of potential interest for the readers but requires more work.
References are too few for a review paper and they are not numbered as per the order of appearance in the paper.
Introduction has too many repetitions and too few references.
English language should be strongly reviewed.
Figures appearing on other papers should have at least the reference number in their caption for the copyright.
Minor thing: the authors used the template of the Materials journal isntead fo Metals.
Author Response
Thank you for the comments. Below are the responses of the comments.
1. Applications in industry have been mentioned in the revised manuscript.
2. The suitability of specific applications in industry has been considered and discussed in the revised manuscript.
3. The coatings are used in high temperature applications specifically in friction stir welding process.
4. Some paragraphs have been added in the new manuscript to discuss on several types of coating
5. The summary has been revised accordingly to address the comment
6. The deficiency on page 8 (line 200) has been rectify and amended accordingly.
7. The number of references have been added to the new manuscript. Increase from 34 to 122 references.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article concerns a review of thin protective coating for wear protection in high temperature application. The title and abstract herald an interesting review work. However, apart from the chronological characterization of the coatings and a laconic description of their parameters, methods of application, their specific application in industry is definitely lacking.
In the reviewer's opinion, the article brings nothing particularly new to the area of ​​protective coatings. The main complaint that can be made is the lack of indication of specific applications in industry. The authors did not consider coatings in terms of their suitability for specific working tools. After reading the article, it is not known if these analyzed coatings were / are used on cutting tools, molds or forging tools, for example. The value of the article would be much higher if the authors concentrated, for example, on one group of processes and analyzed the coatings used for them. The analyzed coatings seem to be universal for all types of processes and their corresponding tools. The conclusion of the authors' approach is the sentence in the summary on page 15, line 425-427: "For each one of the thin protective coating introduced in the industrial process, the objectives are the same: to gain a deeper knowledge on the effect of harder material on forces exhibit from the work ".
In the reviewer's opinion, it will be difficult to find a specific reader of the submitted article.
A certain weakness is also the fact that the article on protective coatings, dedicated to tools to protect them against wear, does not mention hybrid layers. That is the combination of thermo-chemical treatment, e.g. nitriding with a thin layer / layers, about which the authors wrote. After the tools for hot forging is successfully used type coating: nitrided layer / coating, for example PN (plasma nitrided)/CrN; GN (gas nitrided)/ TiN or many others.
In addition, it seems that for a review article 34 references, it indicates a somewhat poor review of the literature. Sometimes scientific articles have more references.
The article also has some editing deficiencies. For example, on page 8, line 200, there is a description for Figure 1 as a comparison of two coating techniques. But already in the caption under the figure there is only information about the conventional plasma jet method.
In summary, according to the article should be reviewed rebuilt / upgraded in terms of the distribution of the applied protective powłoch specific tools used in various manufacturing processes. For example, in table 1, in the "Findings" column, you can add and applications (like machining, casting, forging, etc). The reviewer suggests increasing the number of references and adding a chapter or subsection on hybrid layers.
Author Response
Thank you for the comments. Below are the responses of the comments;
References have added from 34 to 122. Introduction section has been improved accordingly. Relevant references have been added to the respective figures. Template METALS has been used in the revised manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors improved the quality of the paper but some changes are still needed to make it ready for publication.
Minor comments:
English style must be improved; Put the reference number straight after the Author name when it is mentioned: Caption of Table 1 is a bit confusing, please rephrase it; Line 102: what is Geh? Always use subscripts when typing Al2O3; Line 310: Lanthanides instead of Lathanides; line 439: what is the meaning of "hybrid".
Author Response
Thank you for the comments;
English structure has been improved as highlighted in the revised manuscript. Reference numbers has been amended. Captions of Tables 1-4 have been rephrased accordingly. All other typos have been corrected as well.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors took into all of the changes and suggestions of the reviewer.
Please merely change the font size in Table 2 in section c) "Electroanalysis," and bold in Table 3 in the last line of section c) "Ce (NO3) 3 + KMnO4"
The reviewer accepts the improved manuscript and directs it for further evaluation.
Author Response
Thanks for the comments;
English structure has been improved as highlighted in the revised manuscript. Captions of tables 1-4 have been rephrased for improvement All minor typos have been corrected accordingly, i.e, font size, bold
