Fire Retardance Methods and Materials for Phase Change Materials: Performance, Integration Methods, and Applications—A Literature Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript lacks clarity. You should maybe consider reorganizing it by adding descriptions of the organic PCM’s technologies. The progress in performance should be more highlighted. The english should be revised.
1) Please complete the informations about the authors
2) The term flame-retardance should be avoided, it's better to use flame-retardancy.
3) Pay attention on the homogeinity of the police all over the manuscript.
4) According to EN 60079-10-1 the flash point is defined as 'lowest liquid temperature at which, under certain standardized conditions, a liquid gives off vapours in a quantity such as to be capable of forming an ignitable vapour/air mixture'
5) All over the manuscript, the units should be added and verified.
6) In the "Evaluation of PCMs flammability" part, why these tests have been choose ? Why are they especially relevant for the flame retardancy testing of PCM's? Could you add more infos about the number of repetitions required for each test ? Could you also add a critical review of the test ?
7) The transition between sections should be clear and logical, and may require rewriting to ensure a smooth flow of information.
8) The part 3. should be reorganized and cut as they are many repetitions, especially about the mechanism. Also Phosphorus compound are more known for their solid phase mechanism.
9) Descriptions of FR systems should be concise and focus on the technological advances rather than providing excessive detail. Abbreviations should be clearly explained to avoid confusion.
10) All table and figure references should be verified to ensure accuracy : Table 14 / Table 16
11) The figure 37 is too small.
12) Thermal runaway phenomena should be explained in the manuscript to provide clarity on this technical term
13) The conclusion brings interesting elements, that could have been discussed earlier.
Author Response
Answers to Reviewer 1 report in the attached DOC file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper contains the review current of studies assessing the Phase Change Materials at elevated temperatures, focusing on their key characteristics: phase transition temperature range, latent heat, heat transfer rate, compatibility with other system materials. The topic is remarkable and the paper may be of practical interest for fire designers, researchers and manufacturers. Very few comments and suggestions are given in the attached PDF-file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer reports in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This review contains completely a great quantity of studies evaluating the behavior of Phase Change Materials to fire or high temperatures. In addition, the compatibility of Phase Change Materials with other system materials was emphasized to ensure the effective realization of flame retardancy. In my opinion, after incorporation and Minor Revision, this manuscript can be published in this esteemed journal. The recommendations are as follows:
1. In the “Evaluation of PCMs flammability” part, the first occurrence of MSDS abbreviations should provide a definition.
2. In section 2, the author said “This section will discuss the flammability tests, their prerequisites and conditions and their applicability and limitations”. However, there is no description of limitations in subsequent sentences.
3. It is recommended that the author read through the entire manuscript and correct any formatting issues. For example, in section 2.3, the capitalization of words and spaces need to be revised in the last sentence of page 3.
4. On page 14, the sentence “Other PCM applications such as fire protective clothing require low or zero flammability.” is too simple to describe the application of PCM in firefighting clothing. Why does PCM need to be used in firefighting clothing? A logical explanation should be provided, which can refer to these literature: Materials 2020, 13(19), 4320 (https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13194320), ACS NANO 2022, 16: 2953-2967 (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.1c10144) .
5. On page 15, some literature can be added to describe the application of PCM in fire protective clothing to enrich the manuscript. For instance, FIRE AND MATERIALS 45 (2021) 250-260 (https://doi.org/10.1002/fam.2928).
Author Response
Responses to the Reviewer report in the attached DOC file
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript has been corrected according to the comments.
