Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article authored by Zhao et al. is interesting. However, several improvements are recommended before it can be accepted for publication to enhance its scientific quality, readability, and overall impact.

Expand all abbreviations when mentioned for the first time in the manuscript. For example, expand the term “PBO” at its first mention in the article.

The authors should thoroughly correct the manuscript for grammatical, typographical, and spacing errors.

Several sentences in the introduction and abstract are lengthy and complex; splitting them into shorter sentences would improve readability.

“Multi bonding fields” should be hyphenated “multi-bonding fields”.

Incorporate the GPC analysis for determining the molecular weight of PBO.

Provide the AFM data for surface roughness measurements.

Include dynamic mechanical and creep tests for the polymer.

Given the mussel inspiration, self-healing should be tested.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the manuscript entitled “Reversible Mussel-Inspired Adhesive from Strong and Tough Dynamic Covalent Crosslinking Polymer,” the authors discussed the use of adhesives made from a polymer material as an alternative to traditional industry. A bio-inspired adhesive was created using mussels. Although the topics are very interesting and have great potential for academia and the productive sector, without wishing to detract from the authors' work, some gaps needed to be explained.

1- I strongly recommend that the authors remove company names from the manuscript. Note that for scientific credibility, it is not recommended to cite company names. I ask in the methodology whether the citation of the company comes from a patent? If so, cite the patent; if not, it is recommended to remove the company name.

2-    Even though the manuscript has a good structure and reads well, in the methodology of the work and presentation of the results, I believe that the authors could expand the text further. I found it very concise, which can be seen in the number of citations throughout the text, which in this case were only 36. I recommend increasing this number.

3-    I recommend that the authors insert a flowchart or image showing the synthesis in the PBO material, remove image S1 from the supplementary material, and insert it in the synthesis section of the material.

4- For the characterizations of the material in the case of the PBO adhesive synthesis, a microstructure analysis of this material was performed in section 3.1. Initially, I recommend that the authors replace the SEM images, as I was unable to identify anything. The image should be clear and identify the phases of the analyzed material. Upon reading the text carefully, I noticed that the authors wanted to show the smooth phase of the material, so I recommend improving the image resolution or increasing the image scale for better visualization of the material's morphology.

5-    Apparently, based on the results presented, the authors state that the study material shows good deformation and toughness results. I suggest that the authors prepare a table presenting a good part of the mechanical results, as the influence on Young's modulus was shown to be positive. I ask the authors about the statistical validity of the results presented. Therefore, I recommend linear regression or probability dismissal analyses to evaluate the results and improve the discussion, including correlation with temperature.

6-    Regarding the adhesion performance of the PBO adhesive, in this section the authors were very successful in analyzing the nature of the material's adhesion to substrates. I therefore recommend that the authors search for more articles related to hydrogen bonding associated with the phenomenon of adhesion, noting that hydrogen bonding may play a fundamental role in the analysis.

7-    The analysis of temperature in the abstract may be a crucial factor for analyzing the results presented. I recommend that the authors emphasize this in the conclusion of the work, as it was included in section 3.4. After reviewing the supplementary material presented by the authors, I recommend including the data from Figures S2 and S3 in the manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The authors have significantly improved the work, therefore I recommend acceptance.