A Deeper Microscopic Study of the Interaction between Gum Rosin Derivatives and a Mater-Bi Type Bioplastic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

This work has reported a deeper microscopic study of the interaction between gum rosin derivatives and a mater-Bi Type bioplastic. It is very clear and ample analysis about the structure and properties for MB-LF, MB-UT, MB-GR compared to MB with tensile properties and impact resistance which was proposed based on a systematically investigated by a systematical system. Therefore, it deserves publication in Polymers.

Thank you for consider our manuscript for its publication in Polymers as well as for your comments

 

Meanwhile, there are some issues need to be addressed as follow:

DMA is a efficient method to assert the compatibility of PBAT/TPS, thus, I suggest strength that the author should be utilized it to characterize in the revision.

The DMA results have been added in the current version of the manuscript. We believe that the manuscript have been considerably improved.

To improve the compatibility of PBAT and TPS, many efforts had devoted, such as J. B. Olivato et al(Carbohydr Polym 2012;90(10):159-164), S.D. Zhang et al (Polymer Testing, 2019,76，385-395). Please describe their studies in the revision.

Those references has been added and used to compare as well as justify our results.

 

Compared with the authors previous work (Effect of pine resin derivatives on the structural, thermal, and mechanical properties of Mater‐Bi type bioplastic. Journal of Applied Polymer Science,2019.), what are the major purposes and ideas you want to present in this work?

We apologize the unclear idea of the manuscript. The major idea are of the present research is to better understand the interaction of each component in the Mater-bi® bioplastic due to the presence of gum rosin and its derivatives. Thus, in the present study we complete the previous work by deeply studding the materials at microscopic level by means of several microscopic techniques (FESEM, AFM, and AFM-QNM). The obtained results allow as to better understand not only the mechanical response already obtained of the materials, but also those mechanical properties obtained from AFM (in the present research) as well as the oxygen barrier and the surface wettability performance.

Thus in the current version of the manuscript we have extended the introduction section, focusing on the main idea of the present research work.

 

There are lots of grammar errors and your manuscript doesn’t organize very well, especially in introduction section, which make the paper to understand differently.

The introduction section has been reorganized and the grammar errors corrected.

 

The units, such as “% and wt.%”, should have blank with number. And weight percent is wt.%, not “%wt”.

These mistakes have been corrected.

 

In section 3.4, the analyses regarding the oxygen barrier properties and crystallization of Mater-Bi® NF 866 and MB-LF s confused. For example, “low oxygen barrier properties which decreased with incorporation of gum rosin due to its plasticizing effect which increases the free volume in the polymeric matrix”. Plasticizing effect can improve the crystallization proved its Xc, however, OTR of MB-LF is increased, why?

The discussion of OTR results has been expanded in the current version of the manuscript

 

The discussion of Oxygen Permeability is need to improve. The relationship between the morphology of PBAT/TPS and Air Permeability had been revealed in some published papers, such as Polymers for Advanced Technologies, 2019，30（4）：852-862. Carbohydr. Polym. 2013, 92, 1750. They should be referred in the revision.

We thank reviewer for the bibliography suggestion. As stated in point 6, the discussion of OTR results has been expanded in the current version of the manuscript. Moreover, appropriate references have been added to better justify the obtained results. Thus, we believe that the manuscript is now more complete.

Reviewer 2 Report

An excellent and thorough study based on the different components of the sample was performed. The authors are able to manipulate the different additives used to improve the properties of the material studied. This result is very useful for researchers working in the area of blends and composites. I recommend this work for publication in Polymers.

The paragraph on line 338 must go next to the paragraph on line 337.

Author Response

We gratefully thank Review 2 for his positive comments and for considering our manuscript suitable for its publication as is in Polymers.

The introduction section have been now improved.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All previous comments have been responded and it can be accepted to published now.