Volume Transition and Phase Coexistence in Polyelectrolyte Gels Interacting with Amphiphiles and Proteins

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The author is perhaps the best person to write a state-of-the-art review of volume phase transitions in polyelectrolyte gels.  Hansson has a unique perspective having been involved in this field for decades and clearly knows the literature as well as anyone.  This review is timely as the interest in polyelectrolyte gels is only growing. 

The only recommendation I have is for a careful proofreading of the English.  This is not serious, but worth having someone proof the English.  Perhaps the journal has a copy editor.

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for the encouraging comments, and apologize for the many typographical errors in original manuscript.

In preparation of the revised version, I have carefully proofread the original manuscript and corrected a number of typographical and linguistic errors, as recommended by the reviewer.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the manuscript Volume transition and phase coexistence in polyelectrolyte gels interacting with amphiphiles and proteins written by Per Hansson submitted to the journal Gels.

The submitted manuscript is focused on the very important topic related to the polyelectrolyte gels. The emphasis in the submitted review article is on the phase transition mechanisms and driving forces behind phase separation in polyelectrolyte gels induced by amphiphiles and proteins. Moreover, the author highlighted the specific research problems that his group at Uppsala University has come across recently and how they have treated them.

The reviewed topic is interesting and important and the need for such a review definitely exists. It is a systematic and carefully prepared manuscript and the conclusions are adequately supported by experiments and literature data. The quality of illustrations and tables is ok.

As the bottom-line, I recommend this paper for publication in the journal Gels

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for the encouraging comments.

In preparation of the revised version, I have carefully proofread the original manuscript and corrected typographical and linguistic errors.