Extraction of lotus fibres from lotus stems under microwave irradiation

Transcription

1 Extraction of lotus fibres from lotus stems under microwave irradiation Cheng Cheng, Ronghui Guo, Jianwu Lan and Shouxiang Jiang Article citation details R. Soc. open sci. 4: Review timeline Original submission: 23 June 2017 Revised submission: 26 July 2017 Final acceptance: 7 August 2017 Note: Reports are unedited and appear as submitted by the referee. The review history appears in chronological order. Review History RSOS R0 (Original submission) Review form: Reviewer 1 (Jie Xiong) Is the manuscript scientifically sound in its present form? Are the interpretations and conclusions justified by the results? Is the language acceptable? Is it clear how to access all supporting data? Do you have any ethical concerns with this paper? No Have you any concerns about statistical analyses in this paper? No 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited

2 2 Recommendation? Accept with minor revision (please list in comments) Comments to the Author(s) This manuscript reports extraction of lotus fibers from lotus stems in and sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide under microwave irradiation. Effects of treatment time on microstructure and performance of lotus fibers were discussed. This is a well-organized engineering report, which, in other words, describes the experimental observations thoroughly. I recommend the manuscript can be published in the journal after minor revision. 1. In 3.2 section of result and discussion, explanation why content of lignin in lotus fibers decrease with prolonging treatment is not reasonable. Please give the reasonable explanation. 2. Please compare moisture regains of lotus fibers and other nature fibers. 3. Please explain why tensile strength increases with prolonging treatment time. 4. The English language requires improvement. For example, (1) All the full name of is degree Celsius instead of degree (2) In 2.3 section. Change of weight between the weights should be change to change of weight. (3) There is no space between two words such as fibertreated and thedecompostion (4) 80m should be replaced by 80μm in section 3.3. Review form: Reviewer 2 (Mohamed Ramadan) Is the manuscript scientifically sound in its present form? Are the interpretations and conclusions justified by the results? Is the language acceptable? Is it clear how to access all supporting data? Not Applicable Do you have any ethical concerns with this paper? No Have you any concerns about statistical analyses in this paper? No Recommendation? Accept as is Comments to the Author(s) The article is well-written and could be accepted for publication

3 3 Decision letter (RSOS ) 20-Jul-2017 Dear Dr Guo, Title: Extraction of Lotus Fibers from Lotus Stems under Microwave Irradiation Manuscript ID: RSOS Thank you for submitting the above manuscript to Royal Society Open Science. On behalf of the Editors and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript will be accepted for publication in Royal Society Open Science subject to minor revision in accordance with the referee suggestions. Please find the reviewers' comments at the end of this . Because the schedule for publication is very tight, it is a condition of publication that you submit the revised version of your manuscript within 7 days (i.e. by the 29-Jul-2017). If you do not think you will be able to meet this date please let me know immediately. To revise your manuscript, log into and enter your Author Centre, where you will find your manuscript title listed under "Manuscripts with Decisions". Under "Actions," click on "Create a Revision." You will be unable to make your revisions on the originally submitted version of the manuscript. Instead, revise your manuscript and upload a new version through your Author Centre. When submitting your revised manuscript, you will be able to respond to the comments made by the referees and upload a file "Response to Referees" in "Section 6 - File Upload". You can use this to document any changes you make to the original manuscript. In order to expedite the processing of the revised manuscript, please be as specific as possible in your response to the referees. When uploading your revised files please make sure that you have: 1) A text file of the manuscript (tex, txt, rtf, docx or doc), references, tables (including captions) and figure captions. Do not upload a PDF as your "Main Document". 2) A separate electronic file of each figure (EPS or print-quality PDF preferred (either format should be produced directly from original creation package), or original software format) 3) Included a 100 word media summary of your paper when requested at submission. Please ensure you have entered correct contact details ( , institution and telephone) in your user account 4) Included the raw data to support the claims made in your paper. You can either include your data as electronic supplementary material or upload to a repository and include the relevant doi within your manuscript 5) All supplementary materials accompanying an accepted article will be treated as in their final form. Note that the Royal Society will neither edit nor typeset supplementary material and it will be hosted as provided. Please ensure that the supplementary material includes the paper details where possible (authors, article title, journal name). Supplementary files will be published alongside the paper on the journal website and posted on the online figshare repository ( The heading and legend provided for each supplementary file during the submission process will be used to create the figshare page, so please ensure these are accurate and informative so that your files can be found in searches. Files on figshare will be made available approximately one week before the accompanying article so that the supplementary material can be attributed a unique DOI.

4 Once again, thank you for submitting your manuscript to Royal Society Open Science. The chemistry content of Royal Society Open Science is published in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry. I look forward to receiving your revision. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Best wishes, Liisa Niitsoo Publishing Editor, Journals Royal Society Open Science Royal Society of Chemistry Tel +44 (0) chemistryopenscience@rsc.org On behalf of the Subject Editor Professor Anthony Stace and the Associate Editor Professor Claire Carmalt. ********************************************** RSC Subject Editor: Comments to the Author: (There are no comments.) RSC Associate Editor: Comments to the Author: (There are no comments.) ********************************************** 4 Reviewer comments to Author: Reviewer: 1 Comments to the Author(s) This manuscript reports extraction of lotus fibers from lotus stems in and sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide under microwave irradiation. Effects of treatment time on microstructure and performance of lotus fibers were discussed. This is a well-organized engineering report, which, in other words, describes the experimental observations thoroughly. I recommend the manuscript can be published in the journal after minor revision. 1. In 3.2 section of result and discussion, explanation why content of lignin in lotus fibers decrease with prolonging treatment is not reasonable. Please give the reasonable explanation. 2. Please compare moisture regains of lotus fibers and other nature fibers. 3. Please explain why tensile strength increases with prolonging treatment time. 4. The English language requires improvement. For example, (1) All the full name of is degree Celsius instead of degree (2) In 2.3 section. Change of weight between the weights should be change to change of weight. (3) There is no space between two words such as fibertreated and thedecompostion (4) 80m should be replaced by 80μm in section 3.3. Reviewer: 2 Comments to the Author(s) The article is well-written and could be accepted for publication

5 5 Author's Response to Decision Letter for (RSOS ) See Appendix A. Decision letter (RSOS R1) 07-Aug-2017 Dear Dr Guo: Title: Extraction of Lotus Fibers from Lotus Stems under Microwave Irradiation Manuscript ID: RSOS R1 It is a pleasure to accept your manuscript in its current form for publication in Royal Society Open Science. The chemistry content of Royal Society Open Science is published in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry. Thank you for your fine contribution. On behalf of the Editors of Royal Society Open Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I look forward to your continued contributions to the Journal. Yours sincerely, Siobhán Dr Siobhán Hackett Publishing Editor Royal Society Open Science - Chemistry Editorial Office On behalf of the Subject Editor Professor Anthony Stace and the Associate Editor Professor Claire Carmalt. ******** RSC Associate Editor Comments to the Author: (There are no comments.) ***************************

6 Appendix A Downloaded from on November 19, 2018 Dear Editor, Thank you for your comments to our manuscript entitled Extraction of Lotus Fibers from Lotus Stems under Microwave Irradiation (Re: RSOS ). We have made update to the manuscript according to the comments from reviewers. Hope that the revised manuscript can meet with the publishing requirement. Sincerely yours, Ronghui Guo Correction according to the reviewer s comments Reviewer #1: This manuscript reports extraction of lotus fibers from lotus stems in and sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide under microwave irradiation. Effects of treatment time on microstructure and performance of lotus fibers were discussed. This is a wellorganized engineering report, which, in other words, describes the experimental observations thoroughly. I recommend the manuscript can be published in the journal after minor revision.

7 1. In 3.2 section of result and discussion, explanation why content of lignin in lotus fibers decrease with prolonging treatment is not reasonable. Please give the reasonable explanation. Answer: We have added related content in 3.2 section part as follows:... which is due to removal of lotus stem epidermis containing lignin. Lotus stem epidermis is damaged into debris, and then is completely removed during rinsing in deionized water when time of treatment reaches 5 min. However, lignin in lotus fibers is hardly damaged due to its complicated chemical structure. In addition, combination between lignin and cellulose in lotus fibers is too strong to be broken by hydrogen radical. Therefore, lignin content in lotus fibers almost remains constant with further prolonging treatment time Please compare moisture regains of lotus fibers and other nature fibers. Answer: We have added related content in 3.8 section part as follows:... Moisture regain of lotus fibers is 7.62 %, which is close to those of cotton (7.48 %) but slightly lower than those of flax (8.51 %) [28].... [28] Zhang TH, Guo M, Cheng L, Li XL Investigations on the structure and properties of palm leaf sheath fiber. Cellulose 22, (doi: /s x) 3. Please explain why tensile strength increases with prolonging treatment time. Answer: We checked the manuscript and found it is mistyped word. The increases should be changed to decreases. We have revised the error in the manuscript as follows.

8 ...Therefore, tensile strength of lotus fibers decreases with prolonging the treatment time... Downloaded from on November 19, 2018 In addition, the related explanation has been added in section 3.10 of the manuscript as follows.... The damage of external shell of in lotus fibers has detrimental effect on tensile strength of lotus fibers. Cellulose macromolecular chains in lotus fibers are mainly linked with hydrogen bonds which are easily slipped during dragging lotus fibers. The number of hydrogen bonds between cellulose chain decreases with prolonging time of treatment time The English language requires improvement. Answer: The manuscript has been proofread by Native speaker. For example, (1)All the full name of is degree Celsius instead of degree Answer: The word of degree in the manuscript has been revised into C....Finally, the samples were dried at 50 C and named as raw lotus fibers finally, the lotus fibers were rinsed to neutral and dried at 50 C TG was carried out under nitrogen flow at a heating rate of 10 C/min from 30 C to 750 C (DTG-60, SHIMADZU, Japan) The samples were dried at 105 ± 2 C for 1 h and then weighed. The samples were then conditioned in the room with 65 % relative humidity at 20 C Initial weight loss stage of lotus fibers at a 100 C to 110 C is resulted from volatilization of water and surface oil. The second stage for weight loss is observed

9 between 360 C and 380 C due to thermal depolymerisation of hemicellulose, pectin Downloaded from on November 19, 2018 and cleavage of glycosidic linkages of cellulose. The third stage for weight loss occurs at 380 C to 650 C may be resulted from the breaking down of main chain groups of lotus cellulose and slow decomposition of high molecular weight complex of lignin [25]. Lotus fibers after being treated with hydrogen peroxide are almost decomposed when the temperature is elevated to 700 C,... (2)In 2.3 section. Change of weight between the weights should be change to change of weight. Answer: We have corrected the mistake in section 2.3 as follows:...the samples were weighed per 5 minutes until change of weight is less than 0.1 %.... (3)There is no space between two words such as fibertreated and thedecompostion Answer: This mistake has been revised in the manuscript as follows: <1> The fiberstreated in section 2.3 should be fibers treated....contents of waxes and water-soluble substances of lotus fibers treated with hydrogen peroxide for 25 min are to 0.03 % and 3.48 %, respectively.... <2> The toequation in section 2.3 should be to equation....crystallinity index (CI) was calculated according to Equation (2)... <3> The thedecompostion in section 3.7 should be the decomposition....concentration of hydroxyl radicals increases with the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide and then reach maximum....

10 (4) 80m should be replaced by 80μm in section 3.3. Downloaded from on November 19, 2018 Answer: We have corrected the mistake in section 3.3 as follows:...diameter of raw lotus fibers ranges from 75 µm to 80 µm.... Reviewer #2: The article is well-written and could be accepted for publication.