Tuning Pre-Solution of an Amphiphilic Polymeric Dispersant with Low Acid-Value toward Colored-Ink Preparation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall comments: In this work, the authors investigated the effect of solvent types and polymer concentrations of pre-solutions on the solubility of five amphiphilic block copolymer dispersants with different block compositions. DEG was found to be an effective solvent for the presolution compared to MEK. The process of dissolving polymers in DEG as presolution appears to be a key step to increase the polymer solubility in aqueous solution. However, more literature review is needed to improve the quality of the manuscripts. Additional discussion are needed to support the conclusion and enrich the content. The manuscript could be recommended for publishing in Applied Sciences after minor revisions. 

 

Comments:

1.     The authors need to enrich the introduction on previous studies of the amphiphilic block copolymers as dispersants and the presolution method. Are there different types of amphiphilic block copolymers that has been studied as dispersants? What is the current research status on presolution methods? There are only three references on the topic.

2.     All chemicals that are used in the study need to be added to the Materials in the Experimental Section, such as THF, MeOH, phenolphthalein, and pyrene. Please check through the manuscript for all chemicals.

3.     Please change the term “polydispersity index (PDI)” to “dispersity (Đ)” since IUPAC has deprecated the use of the term PDI.

4.     The peaks of the NMR spectra need to be labeled in Figure 2.

5.     The authors should add a detailed discussion on the influence of monomer chemistry and molar composition on the solubility of the polymers. What is the impact of a-MeSt compared to DPA? Is there any impact of block composition (mol ratio) on solubility?

6.     Add (a) and (b) to Figure 3 and Figure 7.

7.     Have the authors tried MEK solutions with different concentrations to control the speed of dispersing presolution into aqueous solution? Does the impact of viscosity applied to all pre-solutions regardless of the solvent type?

8.     There is a typo in the legend of Figure 7. Both (a) and (c) are BL-01. Please check and revise accordingly.

9.     Have the authors evaluated the stability of the polymer dispersion in the aqueous solution? Does the use of presolution method affect the stability of the final polymer solution?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this article,  the authors described the "  Tuning pre-solution of an amphiphilic polymer dispersant having low acid value toward color ink preparation "

Some comments on the manuscript:

1.    The text needs careful revision with respect to grammar and format (spaces, coma, …etc.), the style of the journal must be checked with respect of key words.

2.    In introduction section some new references about using other superabsorbent hydrogels for urea release should be added to the text

3.    The second paragraph in the abstract, third sentence, ,,,,,,,,,which started from :   Concentrated dissolution methods to,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and ended by:  polymers in DEG as a pre-solution is important. It is not clear and should be re-written again.

4.    The abbreviation (MEK) firstly appeared in the Introduction, in the third paragraph,  while its name not appeared before.

5.        In Figure 2, H-NMR of  BL-01 the chemical structure should be drawn on the figure, and the peaks should be described.

6.        In conclusion, this paper can be accepted with minor revision.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf