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Article
Peer-Review Record

Study of Structural, Mechanical, and Corrosion Resistance of a Nanocomposite CrSiN/CrN/Cr Coating Deposited on AZ31: Effects of Deposition Time

Coatings 2023, 13(4), 678; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings13040678
by Changqing Cui 1,* and Chunyan Yang 2
Reviewer 1:
Reviewer 2: Anonymous
Reviewer 3:
Coatings 2023, 13(4), 678; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings13040678
Submission received: 5 March 2023 / Revised: 18 March 2023 / Accepted: 23 March 2023 / Published: 26 March 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Corrosion Resistant Coatings)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

The study investigates the structural properties of CrSiN with varying deposition time, using various experimental techniques. Overall, the work aligns with the scope of Coatings, and the presentation, discussion, and implications meet the journal's standards. However, the authors should address several issues to ensure the manuscript's suitability for publication, as detailed below.

Comments and suggestions

1)      Regarding the manuscript's introduction, the authors begin with Mg alloys before transitioning to nanocomposite nitride coatings. It's unclear why Mg alloys are mentioned, and the introduction lacks sufficient detail, with poor formatting.

2)      Equation (1) should be integrated into the XRD paragraph

3)      From XRD, we can notice that with increasing deposition time CrN peaks shift to lower angles indicating an tensile strain out-of-plane (compressive in-plane stress) is created [1,2].

4)      Fig. 2g should demonstrate the presence of an amorphous area via diffraction or FFT.

5)       The H/E* and the H3/E*2 ratios are typically used to characterize resistance to elastic strain. As deposition time increases, the coating becomes more elastic, which could be due to decreased grain size and increased interface area, thereby limiting dislocation gliding [4].

 

[1] Acta Mater. 229 (2022), p. 117807;

[2] Acta Materialia 181 (2019) 160-172

[3] Materials & Design 219 (2022) 110732

 

 

With my best

Author Response

Reply to reviewer 1#:

1) Regarding the manuscript's introduction, the authors begin with Mg alloys before transitioning to nanocomposite nitride coatings. It's unclear why Mg alloys are mentioned, and the introduction lacks sufficient detail, with poor formatting.

Response:

We deeply apologize for the confusion caused by our unclear expressions and cohesive logic in the first section. The aim of this work is very visible, namely, the preparation of a composite CrSiN coating on the surface of a magnesium alloy to improve its corrosion resistance. Magnesium alloys are known to be less resistant to corrosion. Although magnesium alloy is widely used in many fields as the lightest structural metal material, its poor corrosion resistance is a fatal factor that hinders its large-scale application. Magnesium alloys are a huge source of consumption and waste due to corrosion and wear occurring every year. Due to the presence of multiple grain boundaries, the CrSiN nanocomposite coating can greatly prevent the diffusion of caustic ions into the magnesium alloy matrix and prolong the diffusion path of caustic ions, which has positive implications in improving the coating performance and protecting the magnesium alloy. Unfortunately, we did not make that clear. For the sake of publication quality and ease of reader understanding, we make the following changes.

 “Surface coating techniques, such as physical vapour deposition (PVD), laser cladding, and thermal spraying have been used to improve the surface properties of Mg alloys by endowing them with higher hardness, anti-corrosion, and wear resistance [3,4]. To the best of our knowledge, nanocomposite nitride coatings have been used extensively in recent years. “ in Introduction before has been changed to “Therefore, the surface properties of magnesium alloys need to be improved. Hard coatings which can endow Mg alloys with higher hardness, anti-corrosion, and wear resistance have been widely used to improve the surface properties of Mg alloys [1-4]. For instance, CrSiN coating, especially nanocomposite CrSiN coatings have been used extensively in recent years. ” In addition, some other sentences in the introduction were also altered to make them coherent. See the red marks.

2)      Equation (1) should be integrated into the XRD paragraph.

Response: We have integrated Eq.(1) into the XRD paragraph. Also, we completed the corresponding revision in the manuscript.

3)      From XRD, we can notice that with increasing deposition time CrN peaks shift to lower angles indicating an tensile strain out-of-plane (compressive in-plane stress) is created [1,2].

Response: It is an tensile strain out-of-plane.

4)      Fig. 2g should demonstrate the presence of an amorphous area via diffraction or FFT.

Reply to the reviewer: In Fig. 2g, we added the SEAD image, which is identical to the FFT.

5)       The H/E* and the H3/E*2 ratios are typically used to characterize resistance to elastic strain. As deposition time increases, the coating becomes more elastic, which could be due to decreased grain size and increased interface area, thereby limiting dislocation gliding [4].

[1] Acta Mater. 229 (2022), p. 117807;

[2] Acta Materialia 181 (2019) 160-172

[3] Materials & Design 219 (2022) 110732

With my best

Response:

We have cited above [1]-[3] as [21]-[23] in our reference list after the manuscript. We have also added and corrected the manuscript as follows:

Also, the values of H/E and H3/Eare often used to evaluate the mechanical properties of samples [5,19], and they are typically used to characterize resistance to elastic strain [21-23], as shown in Table 2 and Figure 3. As deposition time increases, the coating becomes more elastic, which could be due to decreased grain size and increased interface area, thereby limiting dislocation gliding [21-23].

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have written an article entitled “Study of the structure, mechanics, and corrosion resistance of nano-composite CrSiN/CrN/Cr coating deposited on AZ31: effect of coating thickness”. The manuscript is quite interesting, well framed, and based on enhancing the surface properties of Mg alloys and expanding the applications of CrN-based materials, composite CrSiN coatings consisting of amorphous Si3N4 and nano-CrN phases have been synthesized. The work reported in this manuscript is interesting and well-presented. The article has some grammatical and sentence errors, and the language organization needs to be improved. The authors have described the concept to a reasonable extent but the manuscript still needs some Minor corrections before publishing in the Coatings.

I advise the authors to consider the following points when revising their manuscript.

Comment 1: Minor punctuation revision is required in the manuscript.

Comment 2: The manuscript needs to be checked for typographical/ grammatical, superscript, and subscript errors.

Comment 3:  Some relevant references in this area are still missing in the introduction section, so include some significant relevant references from recent years to strengthen the introduction section.

Comment 4: Figure 5 Polarizationnand and Nyquist plots are given only one thickness of the coating, the authors have not provided the different thicknesses of coating.

Comment 5: The author did not mention which thickness used in the corrosion study must be mentioned in the figure caption.

Comment 6: The author mentioned in the title the different effects of thickness on corrosion study but not in the manuscript.

Comment 7: The Nyquist plot needs more explanation with different thicknesses. Bodeplot also needs to be included.

Comment 8: Nyquist plot must be fitting with a suitable circuit and calculate the parameters.

Comment 9: The conclusion section is lengthy. So, revise the conclusions section to attain a broad readership.

Author Response

First, on behalf of all authors, I would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their valuable comments, upon which we have made careful revisions, as detailed below.

We have reconfirmed our author list and the corresponding affiliations. No problem. 

Any revisions to the manuscript is marked up using the “Blue color”, which can be easily viewed by the editors and reviewers.

 We have checked all the references so that they are relevant to the content of the manuscript.

Reply to reviewer 2#:

Comment 1: Minor punctuation revision is required in the manuscript.

Response: We have improved these items in the manuscript.

Comment 2: The manuscript needs to be checked for typographical/ grammatical, superscript, and subscript errors.

Response: We have done these items, please see the details marked in blue.

Comment 3:  Some relevant references in this area are still missing in the introduction section, so include some significant relevant references from recent years to strengthen the introduction section.

Response: We have added some relevant references in Introduction, and we have undated the references list.

Comment 4: Figure 5 Polarizationnand and Nyquist plots are given only one thickness of the coating, the authors have not provided the different thicknesses of coating.

  

Figure 5. (a) Polarization curves; (b) Nyquist plots. 20 min-1.4 μm; 35 min-1.66 μm; 50 min-1.92 μm; 65 min-2.26 μm;

 

 

Comment 5: The author did not mention which thickness used in the corrosion study must be mentioned in the figure caption.

We have added the thickness in the Figure 5 caption.

Comment 6: The author mentioned in the title the different effects of thickness on corrosion study but not in the manuscript.

According to your suggesting, we changed the title, the thickness was revised to the deposition time.

Comment 7: The Nyquist plot needs more explanation with different thicknesses. Bodeplot also needs to be included.

The title was changed, therefore, we only showed explanations with different deposition time. Moreover, the Bode-plot has been included.

 

Figure 5. (a) Polarization curves; (b) Nyquist plots; (b) Bode-Z plots. 20 min-1.4 μm; 35 min-1.66 μm; 50 min-1.92 μm; 65 min-2.26 μm. 

Comment 8: Nyquist plot must be fitting with a suitable circuit and calculate the parameters.

The fitting circuit and the parameters were supplemented and detailed in the attachment.

Comment 9: The conclusion section is lengthy. So, revise the conclusions section to attain a broad readership.

The conclusion section has been shortened and refined.

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

.     The literature reviews, as well as data arrangements, need to be reconstructed in order to build up technical logic throughout the manuscript. So, the authors need to add more to describe the main motivation.

2. Nyquist plots should present equal x-and y-axis, the same size, and scale. The circuit model used for fitting EIS results should be added. The physical meaning of CPE parameters should be discussed.

3. Tafel slopes should be added. the linear part in some curves are absent. The author should clearly describe the method used for determination of Icorr.

4. The discussion of Nyquist plot is very poor. 

5. Why polarization curves showed the results of 20min, 35min, 50 min, and 65 min while Nyquist plot showed the results of 30 min, 45min, 60 min, and 75 min?.

6. The following references would improve the discussion of EIS results:

(a) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2017.05.051

(b) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2020.108823

(c) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.corsci.2020.108663

 

 

Author Response

See the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear editor

I am writing to inform you that the authors have revised the manuscript and it has significantly improved. Therefore, I would like to recommend that you accept the manuscript in its current state.

Thank you and best regards,

Reviewer 3 Report

The given comments are fully done. It can be accepted in present form. 

 

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