Quo Vadis: AlCr-Based Coatings in Industrial Applications

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of the paper is very interesting and worth publication.
The research showed in the manuscript is well planned and written.
Generally, the work is good and the results are interesting. Research methods selected by the authors are adequate to the subject of the paper, however, some minor changes are needed for publishing.
 In all of the tables please changes from comma to dot.

I recommend the article for publication after a minor revision.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thanks for your reading and the comments. Your wish for minor changes was realized. We have changed from comma to dot consequently.

Reviewer 2 Report

This review deals with AlCr-based coatings including overview and specific materials.

 

Because the contents are so much that it may be informative for readers who are interested in this topics.

However, some sections are named about general contents and other sections are entitled about specific materials.

Moreover, the order of "general -> specific -> general topics" may be an inconsistent article structure.

Therefore, hierarchy of this long article may become difficult to grasp. Please improve "headwords" and their relationship.

That's all.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thanks for your reading and the comments. Your hint, that the headline structure should be improved, was excellent. It helped to modify the paper for a smoother reading. Please find the new headlines in the enclosed file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The review paper is about the Al-Cr-based coatings and the industrial applications. There are lots of imformation about the deposition technologies and coating systems, the basic properties of different coatings, adding elements in AlCrN, complex coatings architectures, the oxynitride and oxide coatings, and the selected industrial coating types. However, the comparative analysis is not very good and the structure of this paper is confusing. Publishing this paper is not affected by those problems.

• The article contains a detailed analysis, but some of the literary references need to be updated to more modern ones. I think that articles published before 2000 should be replaced with more modern ones. For example, authors can update links by adding an analysis of the following publications: DOI: 15407/ufm.19.02.195;10.3390/MA13173683; 10.3103/S1067821219030155.
• What’s the main reason resulting in the tendency of electrical resistivity changing with the Al content increasing?
• Can you give some explanation about Fig.6?
• There is no description or comparison of the electrical resistivity in the 3.2.4 part.
• About the comparisons of the hardness after annealing at high temperatures, there is no explanation about it.
• What is the abbreviation EPMA?
• The number of the headline is not corrected.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thanks for your reading and the comments. Your hints helped us to modify.

• The article contains a detailed analysis, but some of the literary references need to be updated to more modern ones. I think that articles published before 2000 should be replaced with more modern ones. For example, authors can update links by adding an analysis of the following publications: DOI: 15407/ufm.19.02.195;10.3390/MA13173683; 10.3103/S1067821219030155.
  
  We think, that a review should also have information about the historical horizons. We have in 2021 about 30 years of history. It shows individual development steps of a technology for example.
  Your references contain interesting result, but are not directly correlated to AlCrN-coatings, which is the content of our review. The references cited are mostly reporting on bulk materials containing Al, but not AlCrN-coatings.
•  What’s the main reason resulting in the tendency of electrical resistivity changing with the Al content increasing?
  There are no scientific proved explanation published. The authors do not want to speculate within that review.
• Can you give some explanation about Fig.6?
  The review shows up a lot of details, as for example to the thermal conductivity in Figure 6. A more detailed explanation and interpretation will overload the paper. Please see the reference [65] for more information.
• There is no description or comparison of the electrical resistivity in the 3.2.4 part.
  Thanks a lot to identify the typing mistake.
• What is the abbreviation EPMA?

It’s a well-known abbreviation for Electron Probe Micro Analyzer. We add the explanation it the first time mentioned. 

• The number of the headline is not corrected.

Thank you, the number of headlines are corrected/modified.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Paper ready for publication. No comments.