Electrochemical Study of β-Titanium Alloy in High-Temperature and -Pressure Water Environment
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper entitled: “Electrochemical Study of β-titanium Alloy in High Temperature and Pressure Water Environment” studied electrochemical properties of Ti-39Nb-6Zr alloy at different 49 temperatures and at 700 h exposure time at 300℃ and 14MPa in the 2.3 ppm Li+ and 1500 50 ppm B3+ solution.
Few suggestions for possible improvement are:
- Experimental methods should be presented more clearly
-Regarding figures:1, 3a and 6a are not clearly displayed.
-More details and comments from the electrochemical behavior, potentiodynamic polarization and EIS studies.
- The authors must plot the Nyquist diagrams correctly, by setting the x and y axes with the same scale.--Please give chi-squared values from fitting EIS data, in tables: 2, 3 and 5. -Correct and fix the temperature within figures 3, 9 and 10.
In my opinion the paper: “Electrochemical Study of β-titanium Alloy in High Temperature and Pressure Water Environment” after being revised it can be published in your journal.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors, I have read your paper and I think that it has potential, but there are extremely many things to improve in order to bring it to the level required for publication in this type of journal. First of all, as you will notice in the list of comments below (marked also on the attached version of your paper), you should know that your paper needs to be translated with much more attention, as it is very difficult to understand. Secondly, the initial aspect is of clutter and carelessness for details. Such a paper has to be carefully designed and the results have to be much more detailed. Thirdly, pay close attention to the methods presented - you mentioned the use of XRD but you don't have such results in the paper. In terms of layer morphology, it would be preferable to add measurements on the surface image, which would attest the presented nanostructures. Also, several SEMs with different samples (at different holding times) would have been ideal to support the final observations.
As far as the bibliography is concerned, I recommend you to complete it with other studies that will add value, especially to the introductory part, which must be extended. I wish you good luck and look forward to the revised version!
line 24: Please give examples of properties.
line 28-29: The sentence does not have to start so abruptly and needs more details to justify the statement.
line 30: Assertions must be backed up by citations.
line 35: not „property” but „resistance”
line 39: „resistance”
line 39: what do you want to say with „the pitting corrosion property” – please translate better!
line 41, 43, 44: please translate better!
line 45-46: „the advantages of non-destructive and high sensitivity” of what? - please translate better!
line 49-50: the study is at different temperatures of at 300C?
line 50-51: „in the 2.3 ppm Li+ and 1500 ppm B3+ solution” – You did not give previous details about this solution - the text needs to be completed!
line 52: „were analyzed” – how? „Meanwhile” – this is an inappropriate expression - please rephrase it.
line 56: „a sequence of processes involving sandpaper polishing, acetone, ethanol” – you must explain in more detail these sample preparation steps.
line 59: is this solution standardized? why did you choose it?
line 61: „continuously bubbling” - Isn't there a more scientific term than that? maybe stirr?
line 77: mention the reference for this equation (is equation, not relationship!)
line 83: „measured in Celsius degree”
line 84: „referenced” – what this means?
line 86-95: I think you intended that the characterization methods be listed and organized, but the text doesn't look that way. Please rearrange them so that it makes sense.
line 118 – 119: „the growth activation energy of pure titanium oxide film” - Where did you get this value, with which you are comparing?
line 120 – 121: „The growth kinetics of 120 Ti-39Nb-6Zr alloy is mainly controlled by liquid phase migration. ” – Why do you make this statement? What is the scientific / experimental basis?
line 127: what „enlargements” means in this case?
line 127 – 129: what represents the „capacitive arc”?
line 131 – 132: „a peak appears at about 0.1 Hz frequency” – this observation needs more attention and more explanations because is an essential point of the study
line 135: „weaker and weaker” is more appropriate for the bed-night stories... please modify the explanation
line 140: what „bilayer” means?
line 144: please translate better!
line 144 – 149: the sentence „In addition, when ... decreases to 664.4 Ω·cm2 at 148 300℃.” needs to be rephrased because it lacks coherence - it is made up of several ideas, and the succession of "and" only makes it more difficult to understand.
line 157: The title of the subchapter needs to be modified because the content does not only refer to the sample held for 700h, but to all holding times.
line 164: „increased” is repeated and is hard to understand the idea
line 164-165: translate better!
line 170 – 172: translate better!
line 178: what does „resistant radius” mean?
line 184 – 185: the sentence has no meaning – translate better please!
line 190: „increasing defects” – maybe increasing number of the defects...?,
line 202: maybe „trend” instead of „rule”
line 208: please comment on the blue-marked peaks, which are outside the „general trend”
line 212: the results are not only for 300C, so the title should be adjusted!
line 217-218: translate better, please!
line 227, 230: explain better the terms you used
line 233-234: translate better
line 234-239: the sentence is messy and almost impossible to follow... please translate it better and make shorter sentences.
line 252: make shorter sentences!
line 252-255: could the cracks be caused by the sample preparation techniques? I think you have jumped to this conclusion.
line 266: Figure 10: there is no Rutile on the spectrum, I think is 700h not 800h exposure
line 270: what B1s and O1s represent? explain more about them.
line 283: „... but.” – what in means?
line 283 – 285: The translation must be corrected! It doesn't make any sense!
The Conclusions chapter should be more extensive, not so "telegraphic".
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The English must be revised very carefully!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article investigated the corrosion behavior of a titanium alloy. Although a number of studies were conducted and the article was well prepared, the main thing is unclear: what is the scientific novelty of this work? The authors must clearly justify this (including the Abstract). So far, this looks more like a report on some work. In principle, many more alloys of different compositions can be studied in this way, but without novelty there is no article!
"Stainless steel, nickel alloy, zirconium alloy, titanium alloy and others have been applied in the severe environment for their excellent properties" - the meaning of this phrase is not very clear. That is, all are equally beautiful?
"In recent years, many researchers have been investigated .... But few of them..." - this is too vague!
The introduction should give a brief overview of the state of the art and, based on this overview, formulate the goals and objectives of the study - why study this at all? What is the scientific/practical benefit of the results of this study? This should be clearly substantiated, but I did not see this. That is, the authors simply took some alloy (why this one?) and decided to study it for corrosion in certain environments (why these ones?) under certain conditions (what do they correspond to in real operating conditions?).
Table 2 - the numbers being compared must have the same number of decimal places. the same in other tables.
Unfortunately, despite the large amount of data, the scientific value of this article is small. A certain alloy was studied (why this alloy?), the conditions of the experiment are not justified (why such?), the conclusions obtained are quite obvious (for example, it is obvious that an oxide film will appear on titanium, this happens even in air). Zirconium also begins to oxidize in air at temperatures of 200-400 °C. That is, the conclusion "the oxide film on TA2 titanium mainly consists of anatase TiO2 phases, ZrO2 ..." is quite obvious. It is also obvious that corrosion resistance decreases with increasing temperature. For such findings, it was not worth conducting such a volume of research.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsManuscript under consideration is “Electrochemical Study of β-titanium Alloy in High Temperature and Pressure Water Environment”. The authors investigate corrosion behaviors of Ti-39Nb-6Zr alloy in Li+ and B3+ solution up to 300℃. The comprehensive results presented are of potential interest for researchers and practitioners in the field.
There are several comments on this manuscript.
- The corrosion experiments at different temperatures and during 700 h and 14 MPa pressure have been conducted. Also, morphology and structure of oxide film after 800h exposure time were analyzed. It would be useful to give a brief explanation as to why these particular time/pressure parameters were chosen.
- The number of Fig. 9 (The surface and cross-section morphologies…) should be replaced with number 11 with corresponding correction of numbers for subsequent figures.
- The references are appropriate but relatively old. It is suggested to extend the list of references with 10-15 references five-year-old or fresher. The introduction is also recommended to be expanded; thus, new references will also help to improve the introduction.
- Scientific novelty of the work should be clearly emphasized in the abstract and conclusions.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe quality of the manuscript has been significantly improved. The abstract conveys the general idea and results of the article quite well.
Figure 11 - scale bars are poorly visible.
Of course, I would recommend further investigation of the surface layer structure and oxide films (for example, using TEM) - this would allow obtaining additional data. But this can be done in subsequent articles.
Author Response
Response to the reviewer' comments ：
Comments：
The quality of the manuscript has been significantly improved. The abstract conveys the general idea and results of the article quite well.
Figure 11 - scale bars are poorly visible.
Of course, I would recommend further investigation of the surface layer structure and oxide films (for example, using TEM) - this would allow obtaining additional data. But this can be done in subsequent articles.
Response:
First, we would like to thank the reviewer' kind comments to improve our manuscript. The suggestions are very constructive. We remade the scale bars of Figure 11. And we'll further study the oxide films based on your suggestions.
