Soft Elastomers Based on the Epoxy–Amine Chemistry and Their Use for the Design of Adsorbent Amphiphilic Magnetic Nanocomposites
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
SOFT ELASTOMERS BASED ON THE EPOXY-AMINE CHEMISTRY AND THEIR USE FOR THE DESIGN OF ADSORBENT AMPHIPHILIC MAGNETIC NANOCOMPOSITES
M. Lorena Arciniegas , Jimena S. Gonzalez and Cristina E. Hoppe
Major revision
The paper from Hoppe and co-workers describes a potentially interesting study that appears to be mostly well done, and it is reasonably well presented. The work should be of interest to the readers of Macromol. Some changes are required.
1. It is difficult to judge the novelty as I don’t have direct knowledge of this particular field and the authors do not provide sufficient literature on the field or performance comparisons for this nanocomposite. This should be provided throughout to justify publication.
2. The details of the synthetic strategy (page 1) would be nicely supported with a chemdraw-type scheme.
3. Sufficient detail should be provided to reproduce the synthesis, so the optimised values should be provided (page 2, l77), as should all masses, volumes and concentrations (page 2, l83-88).
4. Figure 5, provide a more detailed description to include some indication of errors/reproducibility.
5. Page 6 L257, comment on reproducibility, yield etc
6. TEM analysis comment on the size control in more detail, in particular is the lower size cut-off a limit of detection at this magnification. How does the distribution width compare to other nanocomposites prepared in the way, there are many for FeO.
7. Page 8 “The presence of a superparamagnetic phase can be used to confer the materials with the ability of being removed from a liquid medium using a magnet” this would also be the case for ferromagnetic materials.
8. Page 8 “This removal efficiency can be optimized by increasing the available contact surface which can be attained by transforming the bulk material into a powder” Is that true? Is there precedent, or data not shown?
9. Page 89 2nd para, rewrite to improve the explanation and provide references to support. What are the implications for the applications if interest?
10. Page 10. Add some more specifics in the literature comparisons to ref 29, 30.
Minor comments/suggestions:
1. Page 5 cupper to copper
2. Identify/describe all the features labelled in Fig 4a.
3. Several symbols have been lost in the text on page 6 and 8.
4. Page 8 “M vs H” is maybe too informal
5. “not significant” to “no significant”
6. Page 10 “the increasing of heavy metal ions contamination in the earth has become a crucial environmental problem” to “increasing heavy metal ions contamination has become a critical environmental problem”.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Review attached
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revised manuscript is acceptable for publication at Macromolecules.
