Microstructure, Mechanical and Antibacterial Properties of TiNb-Based Alloy Implanted by Silver Ions
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
English grammar is very poor and needs to be corrected and checked by a native speaker. Even the title is wrong: the object after "antibacterial" is missing.
it seems as if the text was automatically translated from Chinese (?) into English. However, some mistakes have happened here.
Figure 1 a can be omitted, nothing can be seen. Figure 1 c and d look strange? Does it mean an uniform distribution of Ti and Nb?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is interesting and relevant considering its subject. Coating surfaces with silver and the obtained antibacterial properties represent an important concern in our times.
I consider that, in order to meet the publication criteria, a series of important changes should be made in the paper:
1. In the paper, the authors present the results of experimental tries concerning specimens of Annealed Ti-45Nb (TB14) alloy coated with Ag, from the perspective of Morphologies for the surface and mechanical properties. I consider that, in the Introduction chapter, previous studies regarding these aspects should be presented. Also, a Discussion chapter could be useful for comparing the obtained results with other similar research.
2. In the Materials and methods chapter, no aspects regarding the Design of experiments are presented. How many specimens were used? How many tries were made? E.g., how the following values were chosen - for implantation influences - 1×1016 ions/cm2, 5×1016 ions/cm2, 10×1016 ions/cm2 and 15×1016 ions/cm2, for loading load - 5 mN, for the loading speed 0.33 mN/s, and the pressure holding time 15 sec etc.
3. With respect to the actual drafting of the paper, the references in the paper should be correlated with the positioning of the figures (e.g. at this point, for figure 2, reference in text is at page 2 and the figure is at page 5, for figure 3 reference in text is at page 2 and the figure is at page 6, for figure 4 reference in text is at page 4 and the figure is at page 6, for figure 5 reference in text is at page 4 and the figure is at page 7). Also, in chapter 3 – Results, the authors should improve the manner in which the experimental results are presented, as, at this point, this consist in a mere enumeration of figures that are described. Also is important to highlighted the relevance and the degree of generality of your experimental results.
4. Regarding Figure 3, reference should be made in the text with respect to what Wt% represents.
5. To detail the experimental approaches through which the following were determined: Mechanical properties (chapter 3.2) and the antibacterial performance and cell proliferation (chapter 3.3).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript is devoted to ion implantation process to create antibacterial properties for bioinert Ti-Nb alloy. Results are very positive.
There are some remarks.
- Authors need to use the physical terms generally accepted in ion implantation field of science. It is recommended to change "to inject" with "to implant", "the injection layer" with "implanted layer" or with "ion doped layer".
- Authors could look through some Proceedings of Int. conferences, for example, SMMIB or IBMM.
- Authors need to add data about temperature of sample surface layer during ion implanted with Ag.
- The first sentence could be removed from Section 2 "Materials and Methods".
- It is recommmended to perform an Auger electron spectroscopy analyzis of the Ag distribution in ion implanted surface layer and compare newly obtained results with the ones that are presented in the manuscript already. It will help to make a conclusion about the thickness of the ion alloyed layer.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Very detailed paper, thank you
Author Response
Thank you very much for your email and the informative and constructive comments and suggestions from the reviewer. Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we have carefully considered these comments and suggestions, and have carefully revised the manuscript accordingly.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors made partially the requested improvements. I consider that Design of experiments could be yet much better presented.
In this sense for example in "Response to Reviewer 2 Comments” at the point 5 appear: “Following the reviewer’s suggestion, more details about the design of experiments have been given and the change is highlighted in red in the revised manuscript” but in the revised manuscript I didn’t see any word highlighted in red and any supplementary details about the design of experiments. It seems that the revised manuscript and initial manuscript are identically.
Author Response
Point 1: In this sense for example in "Response to Reviewer 2 Comments” at the point 5 appear: “Following the reviewer’s suggestion, more details about the design of experiments have been given and the change is highlighted in red in the revised manuscript” but in the revised manuscript I didn’t see any word highlighted in red and any supplementary details about the design of experiments. It seems that the revised manuscript and initial manuscript are identically. 

Response 1: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, more details about the design of experiments have been given in Mechanical properties (chapter 3.2) and the antibacterial performance (chapter 3.3), meanwhile more details about the experiments have been given in the Materials and methods chapter, which is highlighted in red in the revised manuscript.
