Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attached file 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Three major suggestions:

Comments 1: The introduction meandering into the history of other suppression agents is unnecessary and should be shortened/removed, figures detailing publications on fire suppression can be removed and intro focused on the introduction of microcapsules and the need for continued study.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your excellent advice. In response to the historical research on other fire extinguishing agents, we have made corresponding deletions, primarily focusing on the historical research introduction of fire-extinguishing microcapsules. Additionally, we have omitted detailed data from fire-extinguishing literature and further emphasized the necessity for ongoing research on fire-extinguishing microcapsules. We have revise the highlighted section in red in the revised manuscript: (pg 2-3 line 45 to 57.) (pg 3 line 63 to 72.) (pg 4 line 82 to 97.)

 

 

Comments 2: The manuscript should do a better job of pointing out evolution advances in microcapsules, organizing references by year (and reporting the year in the body of the text) and highlighting how certain publications changed microcapsule technology in subsequent years. This would benefit discussion in the intro as well as to what year microcapsules were developed/published and how much has reported on them since then.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable suggestion. We have re‑organized the developmental history of fire‑extinguishing microcapsules in the introduction, arranging literature strictly in chronological order. The publication year of each key reference is explicitly stated in the main text. We systematically sort out the milestone breakthroughs and technical inheritance relationship of representative studies from 1999 to 2026, and emphasize how each seminal work laid theoretical foundations, proposed new technical routes, or promoted subsequent technical iterations of fire‑extinguishing microcapsules. We have revise the highlighted section in red in the revised manuscript: (pg 5-6 line 155 to 206.)

 

Comments 3: The figures are great visual representations of important data, but are unreadable in their current format. Make figures 5,6,7,8,9 significantly larger, or re-organize to highlight important things, make text in figure significantly larger, for figures to have appropriate impact. This manuscript could use a keen-eyed editor as well. There are many instances of acronyms being introduced multiple times, of sentences that should end in a period but end in a semicolon, and some sentences that are missing a word and read as incomplete.

Response 3: Thank you for your careful and valuable suggestions on the figures and manuscript language. For Figures 5‑9: We have enlarged the overall size of these figures, so that the figures can deliver sufficient visual impact as suggested. For manuscript textual polishing: We have carried out a full‑text proof‑reading and language revision. Duplicate definition of acronyms: All abbreviations are now formally defined only once at their first appearance in the main text; repeated redundant introductions have been removed. Punctuation errors: We systematically checked sentence endings, corrected inappropriate semicolons that should have been periods, and standardized punctuation usage throughout the manuscript. Incomplete sentences & missing words: Grammatical flaws, omitted words and fragmentary sentences have been identified and rewritten to ensure syntactic integrity, logical fluency and formal academic expression. We have revise the highlighted section in red in the revised manuscript: (pg 17 line 603.) (pg 19 line 691.)

 

Minor issues found:

Comments 1: Define PUF pg 12 line 384.

Response 1: Thank you very much for this careful check. poly-(urea-formaldehyde) The acronym PUF (poly-(urea-formaldehyde)) is supplemented with its full name at its first occurrence and added to the list of alphabet symbol. We have revised the highlighted section in red in the revised manuscript: (pg 10 line 335.)

 

Comments 2: UF and MUF defined multiple times pg 12-13, define once then use acronym consistently.

Response 2: Thank you very much for pointing this out. We have removed repeated full‑name definitions for UF (urea‑formaldehyde resin) and MUF (melamine‑urea‑formaldehyde resin). Now UF and MUF are defined only once at their first appearance, and only acronyms are adopted in all subsequent paragraphs and the rest of manuscript to keep consistency. Revisions are highlighted in red and bold. (pg 11-13 line 337, 420)

 

Comments 3: Many instances of ; use vs. a period making confusing sentence structure. Address, example found pg. 15 line 487 “and silicone rubber composite fire extinguishing materials; Test the encapsulation efficiency, storage stability, and composite material fire extinguishing performance of microcapsules.”

Response 3: Thank you for your careful and valuable suggestions. We have corrected this punctuation error. Furthermore, we scanned the full manuscript comprehensively to fix all similar misused semicolons that break sentence boundaries, avoiding confusing sentence structures. This correction is marked in red and bold. Revisions are highlighted in red and bold. (pg 5 line 140, 147, 155.) (pg 13 line 429.)

 

Comments 4: Think a word is missing in this sentence, pg 22 line 771: “In this test, the time from lighting the candle to closing the lid and then extinguishing it was 2.02 s, confirming PFMP@GE The active fire extinguishing ability mixed into the resin board.”

Response 4: Thank you for spotting this grammatical defect caused by word‑order error. The sentence has been revised to: “In this test, the time from lighting the candle to closing the lid and then extinguishing it was 2.02 s, confirming the active fire‑extinguishing ability of PFMP@GE incorporated into the resin board.” The revised content is marked in red and bold. (pg 20 line 704-706.)

 

4. Response to Comments on the Quality of English Language

Point 1: The English is fine and does not require any improvement.

Response 1: We appreciate the positive assessment of our English writing. Nevertheless, we have still completed a full‑text proof‑reading to fix punctuation errors, duplicate acronym definitions, further enhancing manuscript readability. All related adjustments are marked in red and bold within the revised manuscript.

5. Additional clarifications

None. We thank the reviewer again for the valuable comments, which have helped us improve the quality and clarity of the manuscript.

 

All the corrections according to the comments of reviewers are marked in red bold in the revised manuscript. Thank you again for your suggestions and comments.

Yours sincerely

Chunshan Che

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This review addresses a relevant topic and provides a useful overview of the material selection, preparation, fire-suppression mechanisms, and applications of core–shell fire-extinguishing agents. However, substantial revisions are required before the manuscript can be considered for publication.

1. The manuscript contains many grammatical errors, awkward expressions, and repetitive descriptions. Phrases such as “Fire extinguishing efficiency of microcapsule materials for fire extinguishing” and “Mechanism of action of fire-extinguishing microcapsule materials” are some awkward. A thorough language revision is required throughout the manuscript.
2. After the initial introduction of full terms alongside their abbreviations, the full‑term‑plus‑abbreviation pairs are unnecessarily repeated throughout the text. Each abbreviation should be defined only once at its first occurrence and used consistently thereafter.
3. Fire-extinguishing concentration is emphasized as an important performance parameter, but the manuscript provides very limited quantitative evidence to support this discussion. Relevant quantitative data should be added, or the corresponding claims should be revised to reflect the available evidence.
4. The manuscript does not clearly distinguish between fire-extinguishing microcapsules and flame-retardant microcapsules. These materials differ in their design principles, mechanisms, applications, and evaluation criteria. The authors should clearly define and distinguish these two concepts throughout the review.
5. The manuscript contains excessive enumeration of similar microcapsule systems, which makes the review unnecessarily lengthy. The authors should reduce repetitive examples and focus on representative systems, key mechanisms, and major trends. Similar cases could be summarized in tables rather than described individually. 

Author Response

3. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: The manuscript contains many grammatical errors, awkward expressions, and repetitive descriptions. Phrases such as “Fire extinguishing efficiency of microcapsule materials for fire extinguishing” and “Mechanism of action of fire-extinguishing microcapsule materials” are some awkward. A thorough language revision is required throughout the manuscript.

Response 1: We sincerely appreciate the reviewer’s careful comment on the language quality. We have optimized the awkward chapter headings: The heading “Fire extinguishing efficiency of microcapsule materials for fire extinguishing” is revised to “Fire‑suppression performance of fire‑extinguishing microcapsules”. The heading “Mechanism of action of fire‑extinguishing microcapsule materials” is revised to “Fire‑suppression mechanisms of fire‑extinguishing microcapsules”. In addition, we have carefully gone through the whole manuscript to correct grammatical mistakes, eliminate redundant wording and repetitive descriptions, and adjust sentence structures for better readability and academic conciseness. All language‑related revisions are highlighted in blue in the revised manuscript. (pg 5 line 130.) (pg 15 line 550.) (pg 18 line 673.) (pg 21 line 755.)

 

 

Comments 2: After the initial introduction of full terms alongside their abbreviations, the full term plus abbreviation pairs are unnecessarily repeated throughout the text. Each abbreviation should be defined only once at its first occurrence and used consistently thereafter.

Response 2: Thank you for this valuable suggestion. We have systematically checked all abbreviations across the full text together with the alphabet symbol list. Each abbreviation is now formally defined only at its first appearance in the main text, with full name followed by abbreviation in parentheses. In subsequent text, only the abbreviation is adopted for consistent usage, and the duplicated full‑term‑plus‑abbreviation repetitions in the body paragraphs have been completely removed. (pg 11 line 346.) (pg 13 line 420.) (pg 17 line 596.)

 

Comments 3: Fire-extinguishing concentration is emphasized as an important performance parameter, but the manuscript provides very limited quantitative evidence to support this discussion. Relevant quantitative data should be added, or the corresponding claims should be revised to reflect the available evidence.

Response 3: We fully agree with the reviewer’s comment. In the original manuscript, we highlighted fire‑extinguishing concentration as a core indicator, yet sufficient quantitative experimental data was lacking. Two revisions have been implemented:

1. We have supplemented representative literature on typical fluorine-based core-shell microcapsules fire extinguishing concentrations and compared them with traditional dry powder fire extinguishing agents. We have explicitly stated this limitation when complete raw test data cannot be obtained in the literature.
2. For statements that cannot be fully supported by existing public quantitative data, we have softened our claims. We clarify that at present, unified standardized test methods for microcapsule fire‑extinguishing concentration are still absent in academia; most existing data comes from laboratory‑specific small‑scale tests, and cross‑study direct comparison is difficult. We further point out that establishing standardized evaluation metrics including fire‑extinguishing concentration is one important future research direction. Added data and modified statements are marked in blue. (pg 19 line 668 to 688.)

 

Comments 4: The manuscript does not clearly distinguish between fire-extinguishing microcapsules and flame-retardant microcapsules. These materials differ in their design principles, mechanisms, applications, and evaluation criteria. The authors should clearly define and distinguish these two concepts throughout the review.

Response 4: Thanks for pointing out this critical conceptual confusion. We have added explicit conceptual distinction between fire-extinguishing microcapsules and flame-retardant microcapsules in Section 2 and kept consistent differentiation throughout the full text. (pg 5 line 112 to 126.)

 

Comments 5: The manuscript contains excessive enumeration of similar microcapsule systems, which makes the review unnecessarily lengthy. The authors should reduce repetitive examples and focus on representative systems, key mechanisms, and major trends. Similar cases could be summarized in tables rather than described individually.

Response 5: Thank you for your careful and valuable suggestions. We have streamlined redundant case descriptions: For in‑situ polymerization, complex coacervation and microfluidic sections, we removed repetitive detailed descriptions of highly similar microcapsule cases. We keep only the most representative studies that demonstrate novel mechanisms, new preparation routes or landmark application breakthroughs. Multiple similar systems are condensed and summarized into the existing Table 1, which integrates shell/core combinations, preparation approaches and corresponding references, avoiding verbose one‑by‑one textual narration. In addition, we retain key information about milestone research in the development‑history subsection, because they show the chronological technical evolution of fire‑extinguishing microcapsules, which is the core storyline of this review. (pg 9 line 295.) (pg 11 line 354, 372.) (pg 12 line 404-405.) (pg 13 line 427-429.) (pg 14 line 459-462.)

 

 

 

4. Response to Comments on the Quality of English Language

Point : The English could be improved to more clearly express the research.

Response: The whole manuscript has undergone comprehensive English polishing. We fixed awkward sentence structures, replaced informal expressions with standard academic phrasing. All language revisions are highlighted in blue within the revised manuscript.

5. Additional clarifications

None. We thank the reviewer again for the valuable comments, which have helped us improve the quality and clarity of the manuscript.

 

 

All the corrections according to the comments of reviewers are marked in blue bold in the revised manuscript. Thank you again for your suggestions and comments.

Yours sincerely

Chunshan Che

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed this reviewers concerns.