Bio-Innovative Pretreatment of Coarse Wool Fibers
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This present manuscript explored the effects of three scouring processes and two bleaching processes on the treatment of wool, which had certain guidance and help for the current scouring and bleaching process. This work is a very good contribution to the field and could be published after major revision as mentioned below:
1. There are many errors in Table 3 that should be checked and corrected.
2. I only found 3.1. Fiber Changes (Damages) in Scouring Process in the 3. Results and discussion section without other subtitles, and the text goes directly to the 5. Conclusion without the fourth part.
3. The SEM images of the wools after CSE process were not seen in Figure 2. And a scale should be added to the electron microscope images.
4. It seems that the scouring effect of the two-phase process was also good, but there is no bleaching experiment after the CS-E scouring process in the subsequent bleaching section. CSE-HP and CSE-PC sections should be performed and added to the paper.
5. The picture quality of Fig5a is not good, please replace it.
6. Why bleaching of enzyme scoured wool have better moisture sorption. The CS-E has no relevant data for comparison and needs to be supplemented.
7. The tensile stress curves of fibers treated with three different scouring process can be considered to characterize the properties of fiber damage. Related test method can be reference 10.1016/j.memsci. 2021.119139.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.docx
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments is in attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this paper, the authors investigated the involvement of enzyme scouring and percarbonate bleaching as a pretreatment procedure for coarse wool. The research is valuable for wool textile production. However, the paper suffered some errors or limits as follows.
1. The "introduction" is supposed to be drastically shortened. The authors used too many words to explain the general information of wool and coarse wool instead of putting their work within state of the art.
2. In the final paragraph of the manuscript's introduction, the author presented, "Enzymatic processes of fine wool fiber were researched …spectral characteristics were determined after bleaching and dyeing process with acid dyes, one dark and one brilliant in shade" (row 122 – 125). In fact, there is no fine wool mentioned in the "2.1 Materials". Moreover, no research result about the spectral characteristic of fine wool was described in the manuscript.
3. in row 130, "with the share of 15 % medullated fibers,". How did the authors define the percent of the medullated fibers?
4. Please depict how the authors prepared the samples for testing WI, YI, CIEL*, C*, h0 and K/S.
5. It is advised to present the microscopic image of "Krais-Markert-Viertel" and "Allwörden" test results.
6. Why is there a negative value for the White degree in Table 4?
7. Please explain why the combination of enzyme and percarbonate bleaching endows better whiteness than CS+HP treatment does, as the author proved by SEM images that CS+HP treatment gives a rougher surface to the treated wool. We all know that the scales layer is the barrier for chemicals to enter the inner part of wool fiber.
8. Please check the conclusion in rows 378 -389. "The fibers dyed with the same dye have similar lightness and hue but differ in chromaticity. Although chromaticity does not correspond to the percentage of dye on the material, it increases as the amount of dye on the fiber increases." "The trends are similar for both dyes, but more pronounced for Acid Red 111 dye, which has higher lightness, and brilliant hue" Actually, the conclusion of "chromaticity increases with the percentage of dye on the fibers when the fibers have similar lightness" is just suitable for some brilliant color. In addition, the authors did not have the conclusion "similar for both dyes", as there are no similar results presented in Table 5.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments is in attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1- It is recommended to add a figure after line 60, showing the normal (fine) wool fibers, as well as coarse and medullated wool fibers and highlight their differences.
2- Write the general structure or characteristic of Bactosol WO, Sandoclean PC, Prestogen W, Cotoblanc SEL and Lanaset Navy R in section 2.1.
3- It is needed to explain about Krais-Markert-Viertel 98 reagent and in Allworden reagent before reporting their results.
4- The quality of SEM images is not good. The magnification should be written inside the SEM images.
5- It is recommended to use FTIR analysis for comparing the effects of the treatments on the chemistry of wool fibers.
6- Physical properties of the fibers may be affected during the treatments. It is recommended to compare the tensile strength as well.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments is in attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is ready for acceptance and publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been well revised.
Reviewer 3 Report
Accept
