Bibliometric Analysis of the Green Gluing Technique (2000–2020): Trends and Perspectives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The review below relates to a scientific article entitled 'Green gluing: a way for a sustainable construction', submitted to the journal Forset. The article presented by the authors addresses the interesting issue of developing green chemistry for the woodworking industry, in this particular case the authors have addressed the topic of wood adhesives.  

In my opinion, the abstract should focus more on the issue taken up and the problems posed to wood adhesives. By the way, it is not true that wood has to be dried artificially and with a lot of energy. Wood can be dried in the open air (such wood is desired by champion hang gliders as the wood has less stress and acoustic qualities), it used to be used for construction and other applications, the disadvantage is the drying time, and this results in the use of drying kilns.  

Keywords should be arranged alphabetically.  

What is missing from the literature review is information on currently used wood adhesives and historic adhesives, as well as information on the requirements for adhesive joints. The scope presented relates to the relative or absolute moisture content of the wood? There is also a lack of information on what moisture content is required for wood depending on the application site. How does the use of non-dried wood affect the biological corrosion of wood and wood-based products?  

"The VOSviewer tool allows multiple types of network analysis, considering co-authorship applied to Author, Organization, Countries, and co-occurrence of keywords. The indicators total link strength, average citation, average pub year, and co-occurrence were used" - What factors did the authors take into account in the tests and what weighting did they give to each factor?

In the tables presented, in my opinion there is no information on how the citation changes in the different years considered (an increase in the citation of an article from 2000 to 2020 would indicate whether the topic is growing or whether interest is constant or declining). The paper raises an interesting issue but, in my opinion, there is a need for an extended literature review and a more detailed description of the research methodology (what is taken into account, what impact factors, what analyses were used).  

Author Response

Authors thank you for the valuable comments on the manuscript: "Bibliometric analysis of the green gluing technique (2000-2020): Trends and Perspectives." by Gonzalo Rodríguez-Grau, Carlos Marín-Uribe, Patricio Cortés-Rodríguez, Claudio Montero, Víctor Rosales, and Carlos Galarce, for consideration for publication in Forest. 
We provide below the original comments and our replies for your review. In most cases, we have modified the text and/or included new information in response to the comments. 
We hope that now the material will be found acceptable for publication. Thank you for your time and further consideration of our manuscript. 
Sincerely, 
Gonzalo Rodríguez-Grau

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper "Green gluing: a way for a sustainable construction " is fresh and interesting investigation, which completely corresponds to the scope of MDPI journal Forests. Authors of the paper prepare the bibliometric analysis for the documents joined with the green glueing and stored (from 2000 to 2020) in Scopus(Elsivier), Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), and SciELO Citation Index (Web of Science - Clarivate Analytics) databases.  Presented information can be presented more clear by addressing the following comments:

1.     The title of the paper did not corresponds to it content. It did not gives a certain answer on the question is it possible to get a glulam, which meets industry standards. The paper is deals with the bibliometric analysis for the documents joined with the green glueing and it title should be improved in accordance with it content.

2.     The bibliometric analysis, probably,  should be completed by the results classification, obtained in the considered papers so as by the generalization of the problems, stated in the investigations described in the considered papers.

3.     Colored diagrams indicating the years on the Figures 4 and 6 are difficult for understanding. Probably, it will be better to sign a certain time diapason by the certain color and describe it below.

Author Response

Authors thank you for the valuable comments on the manuscript: "Bibliometric analysis of  the green gluing technique (2000-2020): Trends and Perspectives." by Gonzalo Rodríguez-Grau, Carlos Marín-Uribe, Patricio Cortés-Rodríguez, Claudio Montero, Víctor Rosales, and Carlos Galarce, for consideration for publication in Forest. 
We provide below the original comments and our replies for your review. In most cases, we have modified the text and/or included new information in response to the comments. 
We hope that now the material will be found acceptable for publication. Thank you for your time and further consideration of our manuscript. 
Sincerely, 
Gonzalo Rodríguez-Grau

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In the abstract, there is still no information on drying the wood and no information on gluing. If the authors claim that information relating to the types of adhesives, their applications and mechanisms is not relevant. Also irrelevant is the information concerning the drying of the wood prior to the gluing process. The authors did not explain what the green adhesives were about. Are bone or skin glues counted as green chemistry? What are the requirements for adhesives and 'green glues'. Conclusions should be short statements that result from analysing the results and comparing them with the literature. I do not understand why the authors have this discussion in the conclusions? On what basis do the authors assess the research team (conclusion line 604) based on the research topic undertaken? Most often, the researchers address problems that occur in the home industry. Maybe the topic of green adhesives is only relevant for selected countries, or maybe there is a larger problem such as enhancement layers (varnishes, paints, oils, impregnations) to increase resistance to biotic and abiotic factors from the point of view of the wood industry? 

Author Response

Authors thank you for the valuable comments on the manuscript: "Bibliometric analysis of 
the green gluing technique (2000-2020): Trends and Perspectives." by Gonzalo RodríguezGrau, Carlos Marín-Uribe, Patricio Cortés-Rodríguez, Claudio Montero, Víctor Rosales, and 
Carlos Galarce, for consideration for publication in Forests. 
We provide below the original comments and our replies for your review. In most cases, we 
have modified the text and/or included new information in response to the comments. We 
hope that now the material will be found acceptable for publication. 
Thank you for your time and further consideration of our manuscript.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf