Public Attitudes and Concerns about Ammonia as an Energy Vector

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall comments:

From an engineer’s perspective, the paper answer elementary question when working with ammonia and ammonia combustion. Overall, a really good Article showing the support in technology development in this area.

Abstract

The Abstract contains all relevant information.

Introduction

No formal comments on the introduction.

Materials and Methods

No formal comments on the introduction. Supplemental data is really helpful for further information. The research design is good and appropriate. Statistical methods are adequate. participants are a bit one-dimensional, but common for such studies.

Results

No formal comments on the results. Comprehensive evaluation and good to read.

Discussion and Conclusions

No formal comments on the conclusion section.

Limitations

The limitations exactly fit to the questions evolving while reading the paper

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Thank you for reading our paper and for the positive comments. 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper by Guati-Rojo et al. is generally well written and sound. It reports the analysis of the answers to a questionnaire concerning the perception of green ammonia as an energy carrier. The perception of alternative energies and vectors is becoming more and more important, therefore scientific studies of these aspects are important also for policy makers.

The present study is a first step, because the people that asnwered to the survey are not completely representative of the whole society, as clearly stated by the authors. However, the study is important.

A have only a few concerns about the paper:
- In Table 1, it would be useful to add numbers concerning "Working Status" and "Political Orientation"
- In Table 2, please, order the items in the same order for Mexico and UK, so that it will be easier to compare the results in the two countries;
- Line 114 an suitable -> a suitable
- Please, explain in more detail the meaning of the symbols of Table 3

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Thank you for reading our paper. We appreciate the careful review and constructive suggestions.

Please find below our response to the comments provided:

1. In Table 1, it would be useful to add numbers concerning" Working Status" and "Political Orientation".
   1. Response: Thank you for suggesting adding the numbers. The percentages and means have been added to Table 1. 
2. In Table 2, please, order the items in the same order for Mexico and UK, so that it will be easier to compare the results in the two countries
   1. Response: We appreciate that it would be easier to have the items in the same order for both countries but the reason why they are in different order is to show which items received the highest frequency for each country. As these differ in the UK and Mexico, the order of items is different. We have therefore left the table as it is but if the reviewer feels strongly about changing this, then we are happy to do so.
3. Line 114 an suitable -> a suitable
   1. Response: Thank you for pointing this out. The correction has been made. 
4. Please, explain in more detail the meaning of the symbols of Table 3.
   1. Response: We are not sure what symbols are being referred to in Table 3. We have added a footnote with the specification for SD= Standard Deviation. However, if it’s the statistical test results, this is the standard way of reporting the results. We could provide further information in case this is necessary.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have reported “Public Attitude and Concern about Ammonia as an Energy Vector”. The concept of this work is interesting. This kind of survey helps to figure out how the public is aware of energy sources. On the one hand, energy-saving and on the other hand use of green energy sources are very important for protecting the nation from global warming. Thus, people should be taught this kind of concept and recommended to apply in their daily life. In general, this is an interesting work in this field of research. The manuscript is well written. I recommend its publication in Energies after improving the following details.

1. The authors are suggested to talk a bit more about the application of Ammonia in the introduction part.
2. The authors are suggested to follow an energy-related work: Nanoscale Adv., 2019,1, 1791-1798.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Thank you for reading our paper. We appreciate the careful review and constructive suggestions.

Please find below our response to the comments provided:

1. The authors are suggested to talk a bit more about the application of Ammonia in the introduction part.
   1. Response: Thank you for suggesting adding more information about the applications of ammonia. We have now added a paragraph describing the application of this chemical as a fuel and storage medium. 
2. The authors are suggested to follow an energy-related work: Nanoscale Adv., 2019,1, 1791-1798
   1. Response: Thank you for pointing us in the direction of this work on nanocrystals. We are not sure how it is directly related to the work discussed in this article. However, and therefore we have not referenced it in this current article. We will however consider it for potential future work on lighting technologies or nanotechnologies.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

No need for further review.