Preparation and Characterization of Amide-Containing Polyimide Films with Enhanced Tribopositivity for Triboelectric Nanogenerators to Harvest Energy at Elevated Temperatures
and Jingang Liu 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The paper is well written and organized. Experimental as well as characterization work on materials and devices is thorough and complete. The addition of DFT results is important for the analysis of the experimental results. Overall, it is an excellent article and could be published as is.
Author Response
Comments 1: The paper is well written and organized. Experimental as well as characterization work on materials and devices is thorough and complete. The addition of DFT results is important for the analysis of the experimental results. Overall, it is an excellent article and could be published as is.
Response: We are grateful for your acknowledgment and have further reviewed the manuscript, carefully correcting grammatical errors, and have utilized Microsoft Word's change tracking feature to clearly highlight all revisions made.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The manuscript presents an innovative approach to enhancing the performance of tribo-positive polyimide (PI) materials for triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), particularly under high-temperature conditions. The integration of amide groups with electron-donating effects into the molecular chain of PI is a promising strategy, and the reported results demonstrate significant improvements in tribopositivity, as well as excellent device performance metrics, including an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 242 V, a short-circuit current (Isc) of 8.13 μA, and a transferred charge (Qsc) of 117 nC. The manuscript is of high quality and contributes valuable insights into the development of heat-resistant triboelectric materials. With minor revisions, it will be suitable for publication. A thorough comparison with existing tribo-positive materials would strengthen the manuscript.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
There are minor grammatical and writing errors in the manuscript. For instance, "development of high-performance tribo-positive PI materials" should be revised to "developing high-performance tribo-positive PI materials." I recommend a careful proofreading to ensure clarity and readability.
Author Response
Comments 1: A thorough comparison with existing tribo-positive materials would strengthen the manuscript.
Response: Thanks a lot. As suggestion, we elected to contrast our developed tribo-positive polyimide (PI) material with the conventional tribo-positive polyamide 6 (PA6) material, in order to underscore the practicality and superior performance characteristics of our innovation.
Comments 2: There are minor grammatical and writing errors in the manuscript. For instance, "development of high-performance tribo-positive PI materials" should be revised to "developing high-performance tribo-positive PI materials.
Response: Thanks a lot. We had carefully checked the grammar and corrected many errors in the manuscript and used Microsoft Word's built-in change tracking feature to highlight any changes we've made.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Nice paper on high-temperature tibrolelectric generators. I have relatively minor comments.
Some proofreading and English corrections.
e.g. “ 117 nC, Not…”. - should be full stop, but there are others to examine. Please improve throughout.
Figure 1 - it is a good idea to providea of idea of scale to readers e.g. area, the thickness of layers.
Figure 6 b - I cannot read axes - too small, please enlarge.
The conclusions state it is “novel,” but they do not explain why it is novel. This could be expanded to make the contribution to knowledge clearer.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
ok.
Author Response
Comments 1: g. “117 nC, Not…”. - should be full stop, but there are others to examine. Please improve throughout.
Response 1: Thanks a lot. We had carefully checked the grammar and corrected many errors in the manuscript and used Microsoft Word's built-in change tracking feature to highlight any changes we've made.
Comments 2: Figure 1 - it is a good idea to providea of idea of scale to readers e.g. area, the thickness of layers.
Response 2: We agree with you and thank you for reminding me. We have implemented the requested modifications, as follows.
“The assembly process involved the utilization of copper conductive tape, approximately 40 μm thick, for the formation of electrodes. Notably, the tribo-positive layers were innovatively fabricated using PI film (thick: ~30 µm). which had the active contact area of approximately 16 cm2 (40 mm × 40 mm).”
Comments 3: Figure 6 b - I cannot read axes - too small, please enlarge.
Response 3: We agree with you and thank you for reminding me. We have implemented the requested modifications, as follows.
Figure 6. (a) Triboelectric series different polymer materials, (b) and (c) The KPFM measurement of 3D potential maps of PA6 and PI-d, (d) Energy level distribution diagram of the PI films.
Comments 4: The conclusions state it is “novel,” but they do not explain why it is novel. This could be expanded to make the contribution to knowledge clearer.
Response 4: Thanks a lot. As suggestion, the core idea of work in the conclusions part was modified, highlighting the importance and necessity of our work, as follows.
“In this work, a novel tribo-positive PI material was synthesized by incorporating amide groups into the PI polymer backbone. This was achieved via molecular structural modifications, effectively surmounting the constraint that PI materials were primarily confined to utilized as tribo-negative materials.”
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
