Effects of NiSO₄ Concentration on the Coloring Performance and Corrosion Resistance of the Colored Film on 304 Stainless Steel

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents the results of experiment. The obtained results are of practical nature. The conclusions are clear, but no reference to the wear resistance test.

Paper can be accepted after the following corrections:

• Figure 1 – the text in the drawing is low quality. The quality of the drawing should be improved,
• Wear resistance test – what is the size of the grains in the grinding head?
• Figures 4, 5 and 6 – The font on the axles is too small,
• Table 5 – In what units was time measured ? (sec, min?),
• The numbering of the formulas should be aligned; page 9,
• Figure 9 – the text in the drawing is low quality. The quality of the drawing should be improved.

Yellow colour in text - should be inserted a space.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, Thank you for your letter and comments on our manuscript entitled "Effects of NiSO4 Concentration on the Coloring Performance and Corrosion Resistance of the Colored Film on 304 Stainless Steel" (ID：coatings-827390). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our future researches. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections are marked in the manuscript using the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word, and the number of lines in the responses is displayed in the final status of the revised version. Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us in depth to improve the quality of the paper. Kind regards, Prof. Hairen Wang

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank You for the manuscript.

The article deals with the investigation of the effects of NiSO4   in the colouring solution on the colouring performance of 304 stainless steel and corrosion resistance of the obtained coloured film in NaCl solution.

The article is well written and well understood. Within the paragraphs, Introduction and Preliminaries on Inverse Methods, a brief but the sufficient theoretical basement is provided. The description of the research and the results are suitably supported by the figures and graphs. I didn´t find the substantial weaknesses in the presented manuscript and I evaluate the manuscript positively, however, I have several comments to improve it. They are:

1. Provide, how many specimens have been produced and used within the individual experimental investigations.
2. Was used one sample for every concentration within the tests or there was a measurement repetition at the researches within Sections 3.1. – 3.3
3. In Section 3.5. authors stated that „The data which can be seen in Table 5 were the average of three times.“ What was a variance/deviation of measured data?
4. More specific results should be incorporated into Conclusions.
5. It would be valuable if authors could provide in Conclusions also the recommendations as for the NiSO4 contents at colouring 304 stainless steel from its practical usage point of view.
6. All variables used in pictures/graphs and tables should be explained (mentioned) also in the text, including the designation of the variable.
7. The graphs description should be uniformed for both axes x and y concerning their description, variable and unit.
8. Labels in Fig. 1 are not readable well.
9. Many blank spaces are missing.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, Thank you for your letter and comments on our manuscript entitled "Effects of NiSO4 Concentration on the Coloring Performance and Corrosion Resistance of the Colored Film on 304 Stainless Steel" (ID：coatings-827390). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our future researches. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections are marked in the manuscript using the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word, and the number of lines in the responses is displayed in the final status of the revised version. Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us in depth to improve the quality of the paper. Kind regards, Prof. Hairen Wang

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors worked on "Effects of NiSO4 Concentration on the Coloring Performance and Corrosion Resistance of the Colored Film on 304 Stainless Steel". Few points should be addressed:

1. There are several published papers on this particular research area. What is the specific aim or contribution of this study is not clear?
2. Wordings in Fig. 1 and Fig.2 been corrupted and need to replace with high resolution.
3. Need more discussion of Fig.4, 5 and 6. 
4. Section 3.5. Wear resistance test results: Very hard to understand why there is a variation for different samples? 
5. Section 3.6. Mechanism analysis for the effects of NiSO4: need to rewrite in a compact manner with proper justification.
6. Wordings in Fig. 9 also been corrupted and need to replace with high resolution.
7. Conclusions also need to be properly aligned with the result and discussion section.
8. Overall English needs to be improved. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your letter and comments on our manuscript entitled "Effects of NiSO4 Concentration on the Coloring Performance and Corrosion Resistance of the Colored Film on 304 Stainless Steel" (ID：coatings-827390). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our future researches. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections are marked in the manuscript using the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word, and the number of lines in the responses is displayed in the final status of the revised version. Please see the attachment.

Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us in depth to improve the quality of the paper.

Kind regards,

Prof. Hairen Wang

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

More discussion in the introduction about the influence of the wear and what it causes to this material is needed. As the result of wear we often can have the problem with fatigue of such materials. Due to this fact, the authors should carefully read the literature on this for the 304 steel:

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12223677

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13020423

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13020407

The authors should add figures of the standard samples with the surface before and after the wear resistant test.

The conclusions need to be rewritten in a more concised form.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your letter and comments on our manuscript entitled "Effects of NiSO₄ Concentration on the Coloring Performance and Corrosion Resistance of the Colored Film on 304 Stainless Steel" (ID：coatings-827390). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our future researches. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections are marked in the manuscript using the "Track Changes" function in Microsoft Word, and the number of lines in the responses is displayed in the final status of the revised version. Please see the attachment.

Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us in depth to improve the quality of the paper.

Kind regards,

Prof. Hairen Wang

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors addressed all the comments properly.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have enriched the paper according to the review. I suggest to accept the paper in the present form.