Technical Characteristics and Wear-Resistant Mechanism of Nano Coatings: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors revised the manuscript (coatings-701720, currently coatings-733839) based on my previous comments while explaining well many techniques for the nano-coating. The manuscript gives an overview of the methodology, characteristics, pros/cons, and applications for nano-coatings, and the paper is organized well. My recommendation would be to accept the paper with further revisions as I have the following concerns:
- It would be better if authors give sol-gel process based nano-coating and their principle, advantages, and disadvantages to help the reader focusing on the very different experiments because sol-gel spin or dip coatings are a widespread way to obtain nano-coatings. Add relevant references on the sol-gel process like the following:
Coatings 3(3), 126-139 (2013)
Electronic Materials Letter 10, 869-878 (2014)
Ceramics International 45, 22571-22577 (2019)
Applied Surface Science 508, 145187 (2020)
2. Add the scale bar in figure 3 or mention it in the figure caption.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: It would be better if authors give sol-gel process based nano-coating and their principle, advantages, and disadvantages to help the reader focusing on the very different experiments because sol-gel spin or dip coatings are a widespread way to obtain nano-coatings.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comment. We have carefully browsed the articles you suggested and searched some literature for yourself, and found it helpful to write this article. Therefore, we have added the principles, properties and applications of the sol-gel method to this article.
Point 2: Add the scale bar in figure 3 or mention it in the figure caption
Response 2:Thank you very much for reminding, I have added the scale in Figure 3.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Considering a large number of investigations of nano coatings, the manuscript submitted for the review consists very limited number of references. The main problem is structuring of the manuscript. It looks like a chapter in the monograph. So, the manuscript does not follow the PRISMA guidelines for presenting Reviews which is required by MDPI ( https://www.mdpi.com/journal/coatings/instructions ). It is necessary to correct the manuscript using PRISMA checklist: http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist, especially Review methods should be described.
The article is quite well prepared. The quality of English communication is in good level.
The review of the application and results of other Authors which investigated specific methods of nano-coating fabrication is very poor. Some of the sections includes limited number of references. For example, in section 3.1.1 only two references were cited. The results of investigations of Tang et al. [60] have been described in detail. However, the paper [61] is mentioned in one sentence. The data from other authors must be balanced in the entire manuscript.
The paper is not suitable for publication in its current form. The quality of manuscript does not meet high standard of Coatings journal.
Detailed comments:
- line 1: "Article" have to be replaced by "Review".
- line 50: "[4]" should be replaced at the end of the sentence.
- line 63: The aim of this article must be specified at the end of section Introduction.
- line 65. The second sentence in the 2nd section must be removed.
- lines 68-69: Check grammar.
- line 111: "Sawyer and Man". Is it possible to add reference?
- There are many mistakes where it is a lack of space between words, i.e. "layer[13]".
- Figure 3: "is the" may be removed from the caption.
- section 2.3. The principle of liguid phase method must be added in this section.
- line 215: Remove the symbol of bulleted list.
- line 248: Replace ":" by ";"
- lines 248-251" Remove (a), (b), ...
- figure 9: The caption should be corrected as "... (a) spherical powder of raw material and (b) ...". Avoid using "is", "are", "was" etc in captions. Carefully check the entire manuscript.
- line 377: "Suresh" should be "Suresh Babu" according to list of references.
- figure 10: Use contrast colour (yellow?) of font in the description of this figure.
- table 1. It is suggested to add references into the table, especially in the last column.
- page 15: First paragraph in 3rd section should be assigned to a new subsection.
- page 15: Remove second sentence in subsection 3.1.
- In the section 3.1.1 put special attention to the fabrication of ceramic/ceramic nano-coating materials in United States. Why? Moreover, in section 3.1.2 the United States are mentioned two times. What about the rest of continents? By the way "The United States of America (USA)" is a correct form.
- line 495: Add reference(s) after "American researchers [....]"
- line 506: Abbreviation of "the short carbon fiber" should be SCF, or CF.
- line 532: "The Unites States had applied" Avoid to reference to the nations when describing the investigations. Add references to the researchers from the United States.
- line 535: "be superposed and superposed"?
- line 553: Remove spaces in "Organic / inorganic".
- line 567: Reference [69] has not been written by Ayman et al.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: line 1: "Article" have to be replaced by "Review".
Response 1: We have replaced "article" with "review".
Point 2:line 50: "[4]" should be replaced at the end of the sentence.
Response 2: Thank you very much for reminding, I have made corrections.
Point 3: line 63: The aim of this article must be specified at the end of section Introduction.
Response 3: Thanks for your comments, I added the purpose of the article at the end of Introduction. ‘In this paper, through the introduction of the technical characteristics of the nano coating and the study of the wear resistance mechanism of the nano coating, the nano material and the surface coating technology are combined to prepare a surface composite coating containing nano powders. The coating on the surface of the part can improve the modification effect of the surface technology and improve the anti-wear and anti-corrosion ability of the material surface.’
Point 4: line 65. The second sentence in the 2nd section must be removed.
Response 4: We apologize for the negligence that was repeated twice in the first sentence, and I have deleted it.
Point 5: lines 68-69: Check grammar.
Response 5: We split this sentence into two sentences. ‘On the one hand, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD) and other conventional surface coating technologies are applied. They regulate the thickness and grain size of the coating by process parameters.’
Point 6: line 111: "Sawyer and Man". Is it possible to add reference?
Response 6: We searched the literature and found that what Sawyer and Man published in 1880 using chemical vapor deposition was a patent, named "a pyrolytic carbon". But I couldn't find the citation format of the patent works in the sci paper, so I added in the article a statement that Sawyer and Man's work is a patent.
Point 7: There are many mistakes where it is a lack of space between words, i.e. "layer[13]".
Response 7: We are sorry for such low-level errors in the article. I have carefully checked and corrected such errors.
Point 8: Figure 3: "is the" may be removed from the caption.
Response 8: Thank you for your comments, I have removed the "is" and avoided such problems in the future.
Point 9: section 2.3. The principle of liguid phase method must be added in this section.
Response 9: We consulted the literature and found that the liquid phase method is a collective term, and we believe that the sol-gel method is more suitable for this article, so we removed the content about the "liquid phase method". Added the principle, characteristics and application of "sol-gel method".
Point 10: line 215: Remove the symbol of bulleted list.
Response 10: We have changed the content.
Point 11: line 248: Replace ":" by ";".
Response 11: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have revised it.
Point 12: lines 248-251" Remove (a), (b), ...
Response 12: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have removed them.
Point 13: figure 9: The caption should be corrected as "... (a) spherical powder of raw material and (b) ...". Avoid using "is", "are", "was" etc in captions. Carefully check the entire manuscript.
Response 13: Thank you for your comments, I have removed the "is" , "are", "was" etc in captions and avoided such problems in the future.
Point 14: line 377: "Suresh" should be "Suresh Babu" according to list of references.
Response 14: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have revised it.
Point 15: figure 10: Use contrast colour (yellow?) of font in the description of this figure.
Response 15: Thank you for carefully reading our article. We have modified Figure 10, and we have added white text on a black background for better browsing.
Point 16: table 1. It is suggested to add references into the table, especially in the last column.
Response 16: We have incorporated references in each of the following preparation principles, features, and materials.
Point 17: page 15: First paragraph in 3rd section should be assigned to a new subsection.
Response 17: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have revised it.
Point 18: page 15: Remove second sentence in subsection 3.1.
Response 18: We apologize for the negligence that was repeated twice in the sentence, and I have deleted it.
Point 19: In the section 3.1.1 put special attention to the fabrication of ceramic/ceramic nano-coating materials in United States. Why? Moreover, in section 3.1.2 the United States are mentioned two times. What about the rest of continents? By the way "The United States of America (USA)" is a correct form.
Response 19: After consulting the literature, we found that the application of ceramic / ceramic nano-coating materials is not just for the United States. The application of ceramic / ceramic nano-coating materials in most countries is as described in the article. Therefore, we feel that the words "United States" have been deleted from the article.
Point 20: line 495: Add reference(s) after "American researchers [....]".
Response 20: The work of American researchers is the patent "Methods of forming ceramic compositions", we have added a description in the text, and we have removed the words "American".
Point 21: line 506: Abbreviation of "the short carbon fiber" should be SCF, or CF.
Response 21: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have revised it.
Point 22: line 532: "The Unites States had applied" Avoid to reference to the nations when describing the investigations. Add references to the researchers from the United States.
Response 22: Thank you for your comments. We have made corrections and will avoid this problem in future writing.
Point 23: line 535: "be superposed and superposed"?
Response 23: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have revised it.
Point 24: line 553: Remove spaces in "Organic / inorganic".
Response 24: Thank you for reading our article carefully, we have revised it.
Point 25: line 567: Reference [69] has not been written by Ayman et al.
Response 25: Due to our negligence, the author's first and last names for this document were mistaken. We have made corrections, and thank you very much for your careful review.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments.
Paper is very superficial. It looks more like a marketing document, but not a research paper.
- The title is not acceptable. Grammar revision is needed.
- Some information (PVD, CVD and so on) is well known. It must be strongly compressed to prevent overlapping with common knowledge.
- line 492, 499, 532. The United States is not the only country that develops coatings. It should be removed.
- line 537. Anti-wear is not a good term. Probably ‘wear’ is most appropriate.
- line 617. Authors mention ‘quantum size effect, and macro quantum tunneling effect’. Please describe it in more detail or delete it.
- line 631. The statement about infancy is highly questionable. Either explain or much better, delete.
- line 640. The statement about the thermal spray coating is highly questionable. Either explain in more details, or much better, delete.
- line 647. A highly questionable statement, that has no relation to the text.
I cannot recommend this paper for publishing before all the comments will be addressed.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: The title is not acceptable. Grammar revision is needed.
Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion, we have revised the title "Technical Characteristics and Wear-resistant Mechanism of Nano Coatings: a review".
Point 2: Some information (PVD, CVD and so on) is well known. It must be strongly compressed to prevent overlapping with common knowledge.
Response 2: Thank you very much for reminding, we compress the contents of PVD and CVD into three parts. The first part is a brief introduction to PVD and CVD technology, the second part is classification, and the third part is to explain the technical principles through graphics.
Point 3: line 492, 499, 532. The United States is not the only country that develops coatings. It should be removed.
Response 3: Thanks for your comments, I have removed the word about the country from the article and have similar problems in future writing.
Point 4: line 537. Anti-wear is not a good term. Probably ‘wear’ is most appropriate.
Response 4: Thank you for your comments. I didn't find the word "anti-wear" on line 537, but I replaced the words "anti-wear" with "wear-resistant" in the full text. I checked the titles of many documents and found "Wear-resistant" is more suitable for this article.
Point 5: line 617. Authors mention ‘quantum size effect, and macro quantum tunneling effect’. Please describe it in more detail or delete it.
Response 5: Thank you for your comments. In the last review, a reviewer asked us to explain the nano effect, so we added four major effects of nano materials in the article. However, in this article, only small-scale effects can explain the wear-resistant mechanism of nano-coatings, so we have deleted the description of the four major effects of nano-materials in the article.
Point 6: line 631. The statement about infancy is highly questionable. Either explain or much better, delete.
Response 6: Thank you for carefully reviewing our article. For nano coatings, we want to express that it is in a stage of development, but there are still many problems. It might not be appropriate to use the word "infancy", so we replaced it with "development."
Point 7: line 640. The statement about the thermal spray coating is highly questionable. Either explain in more details, or much better, delete.
Response 7: Thank you for your comments, we have deleted this paragraph in the article. We read a lot of articles before joining this passage, which wrote "thermal spray technology is the most ideal technology for obtaining nanostructured coatings, and it is also the most promising technology." But after your reminder, we are serious I thought whether this passage appeared here. Considering that each nano-coating preparation technology has its own advantages and disadvantages, we cannot simply think that thermal spraying technology is the best method for preparing nano-coatings, so we It is also considered inappropriate to appear here.
Point 8: line 647. A highly questionable statement, that has no relation to the text.
Response 8: Thank you for your reminder, we have deleted this sentence. Indeed, there should be no introduction to 3D printing technology in this article.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The Authors do not provide responses to following issue:
"The main problem is structuring of the manuscript. It looks like a chapter in the monograph. So, the manuscript does not follow the PRISMA guidelines for presenting Reviews which is required by MDPI ( https://www.mdpi.com/journal/coatings/instructions ). It is necessary to correct the manuscript using PRISMA checklist: http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist, especially Review method should be described."
The reviewer must reviev the paper according to MDPI guidelines. Although the Authors correct the manuscript carefully according to the points 1-25, the lack of description of the review method according to MDPI requirements (please see Prisma checklist) means that I cannot formally accept the manuscript in the current form.
Final decision on the manuscript acceptance can be made based on the communication of the Authors with the Editor.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point: The main problem is structuring of the manuscript. It looks like a chapter in the monograph. So, the manuscript does not follow the PRISMA guidelines for presenting Reviews which is required by MDPI.
Response:Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on publication of our paper. For the modification of this article, I have marked it with a green background in the manuscript. We have added various preparation technologies in the future to the manuscript, making the content more comprehensive and reasonable. At the same time, the examples in the manuscript were classified, and related sentences were added between them to make the content of the article browse more smoothly. For the structure of the article, we combine the opinions of all reviewers, combined with the structural integrity of the paper, etc. We still choose to introduce, nano-coating preparation technology, nano-coating commonly used preparation materials, wear-resistant mechanism and summary of nano-coating, so that the content of the article is reasonable, substantial and organized.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Accept
Author Response
Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on publication of our paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors present a review on the mechanism of nano-coatings for anti-wear fuction that could be of potential interest for a wide range of researchers. However, the manuscript must be significantly improved before considering its publication.
Both the writing and English of the manuscript should be carefully revised, as the text contains numerous repetitions (see e.g.: lines 80, 240, 275-278, 309,431-435 examples) and confusing phrases (see e.g. lines 127-128, 563-564).
The article, as a whole, needs more references to support all the statements made throughout it.
Comparatively, much more space and references are dedicated to the thermal spraying technique. The sections corresponding to other technologies should be expanded or an appropriate explanation for the lesser extent of these sections should be given.
It would be desirable that the section corresponding to the Liquid Phase technique also presented the advantages and disadvantages of this technology with respect to the others.
The description of the operation of the Physical Vapor Deposition technique is very inacurate (lines 137-143). Authors should look for a reliable source of documentation (see e.g. Handbook of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) Processing, Donald M. Mattox, Elsevier (2010)).
Section 2.5.2 presents results referring to four materials (WC/Co, ZrO2, Al2O3 - Al2O3 / TiO3 and Ni-based alloys). A reasoned justification should be given as to why these materials are specifically used.
Section 3.2 is too short. A deeper literature review should be made or an appropriate explanation given to the lesser extent of this section.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors explained about the nano-coating. The manuscript gives an overview of methodology and characteristics for nano-coatings, but the paper is not organized well. Unfortunately, I don’t think the manuscript is ready to publish at Coatings.
There is no enough explanation for all sections (Introduction, Preparation Technology of Nano-coatings, Type of Nano-coating materials, Mechanism of Nano-coating Anti-wear, Future Scope and Conlcusion). Author must add more information on each section.
Author might need to add Tables to compare about their mechanism, preparation technology, and applications etc, separately.
Reviewer 3 Report
First of all, The manuscript is not prepared according to the PRISMA checklist. So, it was not possible to check that the objectives have been achieved and methods of the review were appropriate. According to the Guide for Authors, Reviews must provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research. Systematic reviews should follow the PRISMA guidelines.
The manuscript looks like a chapter in a monograph or fragment of a book.
The main problem of this review is too wide scope of topic analysed.
So, the references provided in specific sections and subsections are very limited. For example in section describing "Application of Chemical Vapor Deposition in Nano-coating" only three references have been included. This comment applies for all sections in this manuscript.
So, the statement from Abstract that "Firstly, the preparation methods of conventional surface coatings [...] as well as the newly developed surface coating preparation methods [...] are reviewed IN DETAIL." is not true.
The section "Type of nano-coating Materials" is also very perfunctory. The analysis of only two publication (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705816302016 , https://www.elsevier.com/books/anti-abrasive-nanocoatings/aliofkhazraei/978-0-85709-211-3 ) suggest for me that there are many materials for nanocoatings which were not discussed in this paper. Abovementioned references are exemplary, and this is not suggestion to cite them.
If you decide to correct the manuscript please follow PRISMA checklist.
Other minor comments:
1.line 1. "Article" should be "Review".
2.lines 222: Please correct the style of the sentence: "[...] mechanical and mechanical properties of mechanical parts."
3.line 167. Remove double space after "structure."
4.line 374: "[...] for ships and ships." What is the difference between "ships" and "ships"?
5.lines 479-480: Reference [42] should be cited as "Bigelow and Shen [42]".
6.Section 5 consists too general information. Conclusions presented by Authors in this section may be drawn without an analysis of sections 1-4.
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript entitled: 'Characteristics and Mechanism of Nano-coating Based on Anti-wear Function' focuses on a short review about different coating techniques and materials based on anti-wear function.
Based on the titled: I have the primary but most important concern.
How can the coating be called nano-coating if the techniques like laser cladding, thermal spraying etc. were involved? At least from Fig. 5-11, I do not see any nano-coating instead they are micron or sub-micron coating. Either the title has to be modified accordingly or the text and figures in the manuscript should show the presence of nanocoating. At least with laser cladding, the thickness of the coating also depends on the laser spot size, which is in the order of several hundred microns, I doubt the formation of a nanocoating. Scale bars in Fig. 12 is not clearly visible. Mechanism of anti-wear especially the nano-effects lacks adequate description hence should be focused based on the title of the manuscript. The integration of 3D technology and nano-coating prospects should be explained more in detail. Not all processes will be suitable for 3D technology and hence it should be emphasized as which process is suitable for integrating into a 3D technology and why.