Plasma Treatment as a Sustainable Method for Enhancing the Wettability of Jute Fabrics
, Marija Milošević 2, Bratislav Obradović 3, Zorica Svirčev 4,5 and Mirjana Kostić 2Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Similar studies have been reported earlier; it seems the article lacks in terms of novelty as the same procedures have been used previously, and similar effects on wettability and surface modifications are reported.
2. The authors have mentioned that they have used atmospheric plasma treatment. The study can be made more effective by presenting a comparison with other alkali and oxidative chemical methods. This comparison can also include other studies regarding the plasma treatment of jute fibers. Thus, based on the comparison, the authors can draw how effective their methodology is in terms of wettability and capillarity and may also report the novelty of the work.
3. The sentences, “Conventional wet chemical modifications such as alkali scouring, and oxidation (i.e., bleaching) [5-7] lead to the removal of hemicelluloses and lignin, and therefore, obtaining cellulose-rich fibers with improved mechanical, electro-physical, thermal, electrokinetic, and/or sorption properties. In such a way, the jute fiber application can be significantly broadened from conventional textile products to products with high performances.” should be cited also by these references https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11050769 and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.09.237.
4. The authors have presented FE-SEM in Figure 2. In Figure 2b, it seems the FESEM parameters, i.e., brightness, contrast, and orientation, are different compared to Figure 2a and Figure 2c. All figures should be taken with the same parameters for clarity of results.
5. Improving surface wettability by plasma treatment can also affect the thermomechanical behavior of jute fibers. The study can be more effective by including the effect of plasma treatment on the thermomechanical properties of jute fiber.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled “Plasma treatment as a sustainable method for enhancing the wettability of jute fabric” has been reviewed. The results are helpful. However, the manuscript needs to be well-improved before the acceptance. Detailed comments are as follows:
1. In the title, jute fabric should be jute fabrics.
2. The full names of the abbreviations, such as ATR-FTIR and FE-SEM, should be provided where they first mentioned in the abstract and main text.
3. The abbreviations, such as ATR, should be named only once.
4. Detailed information on the plasma instrument should be provided.
5. In Fig. 1, a.u. should be removed since there is no unit for absorbance. The lines in the figure should be widened. The color of lines should be fit with their legends.
6. In Line 299, the Ref. [2013] is wrong.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
Concerning the manuscript “the Plasma treatment as a sustainable method for enhancing the wettability of jute fabric”
There is no doubt that it summarizes valuable information concerning using plasma for fabrics based on cellulose.
The work seems quite well organized, however, I find that there are some aspects that the authors could consider, in order to facilitate the reading and understanding of the article, such as:
1. In abstract, the last paragraph needs to be clear and significantly of application and more scientific.
2. In the introduction, the background about biocarpet engineering is little, the authors should enrich this part and emphasize the necessity of "application of fibers" for biocarpet engineering and give some examples.
3. The authors focused on using plasma treatments and distinguished properties generally, but what are the specific problems of this type of plasma? The authors never discussed it.
4. The methodology must be clearer for experimental, because in material, some important details missing such as design of fabric (weaving or knitted or non-woven) wave design, yarn count, weight, thickness and raw or bleaching (The specifications of this sample). In plasma treatment, authors used 2 parameters but authors not mention why?
5. In experimental, authors missing some important properties such as mechanical, electro-physical, thermal, electrokinetic, and/or sorption properties. These properties are mention them at introduction section line 51and 52.
6. In experimental, some tests method needs to add such as the weight loss, air permeability, thickness, whiteness, contact angle, EDX and XPS to indicate the changes of fabric properties after using plasma treatment.
7. In material and method, authors mention AATCC test method 79-2007 (absorbency of bleached textile). This test method for bleaching textile please recheck the year or in material mention this is bleaching fabric.
8. It would be advisable to include a diagram that supports the very brief description of the paragraph on the plasma treatment, as well as the bibliographic source on which it is based, or the declaration of the method developed and validated by the authors of the article and its reference.
9. Please revisit the entire manuscript for minor grammar issues.
10. Recheck figures titles and details. Recheck title of figure 3 and correct it, merge figure 4 and 6 to one figure. What’s the difference between figure 2 and 3?
11. In discussion and perspectives, authors should consider giving some methodological design about how to improve the performance of using this process more specifically as biocarpet engineering application.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Accept
Author Response
We thank the Reviewer for the recommended acceptance of the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been well revised. It can be accepted now.
Author Response
We thank the Reviewer for the recommended acceptance of the manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors have carefully responded the previous comments to despite improved quality of the manuscript after revision, I still have two minor comments that should be properly addressed:
1. Line 151. (Raw jute fabric) please mention dimension of sample according to line 173
2. Line 260. Recheck figure 3 (new figure 4) replace (b) J300) to d) J300
Author Response
The detailed response to the Reviewer is submitted as a separate file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
