Re: PAT-09-234 revised

The manuscript PAT-09-234 has been carefully revised and some new data were added in the revised text (please see Table 2), and the major revisions were marked in red. We appreciate the detailed and useful comments and suggestions from you and referees. The point-by-point answers to the comments and suggestions were listed as below.

 

Referee #1:

Q1. In Fig 1, “50?” should be “50oC”.

Answer: We accept the referee’s suggestion, this error has been corrected in the revised manuscript.

 

Q2. Page 4, line 54: “Then the mixture was degassed to remove entrapped air at 150^oC in a vacuum oven for 2h.......”. Fig 4 indicated that the gel time of 30%HBPSIEP/BCE at 160 ^oC is about 100min. if the resin has been cured in degassing process?

Answer: These errors have been corrected and the related paragraph has been rewritten in the revised manuscript.

 

Q3. In Fig 2, the units for wavenumber should be shown in the diagram.

Answer: We accept the referee’s suggestion, the units for wavenumber have been labelled in the plot, please see the X-axis in Figure 1 in the revised manuscript.

 

Q4. Page 11, line 40: “More interesting, it has been proved that if a material has higher char yield and lower Tmax, then the material will have better flame retardancy.” The author should provide the proof that Higher char yield indicate better flame retardancy.

Answer: The suggestion has been taken seriously and these sentences have been deleted from the revised manuscript due to the deficiency of related proof.

 

 

Referee #2:

Q1. Authors reported negatively charged membrane but they did not studied membrane conductivity, which is essential property to asses, the suitability of charged membrane.

Answer: As the referee’s comment pointed out, membrane conductivity is really the essential property to evaluate the suitability of charged membrane, especially for their applications in fuel cells. However, for their applications in environmental field, such as the removal of heavy metal ions from the aqueous solution, membrane conductivity seems to be less important. This is because in this case we mainly concern the ion-exchange capacity rather than the proton conductivity. Consequently, we think it is not necessary to highlight membrane conductivity of the prepared negatively charged hybrid membranes and these data were not reported in this manuscript.

 

Q2. Extremely low ion-exchange capacities of developed membranes (0.2-0.3 mmol g-1) jeopardize their applications.

   Answer: As the referee’s comment pointed out, the ion-exchange capacities (IECs) of the prepared membranes were relatively lower. Thus will influence their applications as adsorbent for the removal of heavy metal ions from water. This is the reason why the adsorption behaviors for removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions using these hybrid membranes were not reported in this study.

For their applications in industry especially in environmental field, further work is thus required to optimize the membrane preparation process so as to highly elevate the IEC values of these hybrid membranes. We believe this problem will be solved with the further improvement on membrane properties and optimization of operational parameters. When the membrane properties are improved and ideal IECs are obtained, their adsorption behaviors for removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions will be further investigated, which will be our future job. This explain has been added in the revised manuscript, please see lines 5-14 on page 13.

 

Q3. A membrane should have good mechanical stability for its applications. But author failed to include any information on the mechanical stability of the membrane.

Answer: As the referee’s comment pointed out, good mechanical stability of a membrane can conduce to its application especially for its use in industrial separation by pressure. Geneally speaking, organic membrane has lower mechanical strength and stability, it can not meet the need of separation in industry. Consequently, hybridization technique is used to increase the membrane’s mechanical and stability. Nonetheless, for hybrid membranes potentially used in non-pressure operating condition, thermal stability may be more attractive in that they expects to be used in higher temperature and strongly oxidizing circumstances for industrial applications (as stated in the abstract). In our case, the prepared membranes expect to be used in environmental field, not be used to separate species by pressure, thus we mainly concern their thermal stability rather than their mechanical strength. Due to these reasons, the thermal stability of the prepared membranes was highlighted and the mechanical stability of the membrane was not reported in this manuscript.

 

Q4. Author should also include proposed applications for the reported membranes. It would have been better that author should complete their investigation for adsorption behaviors for removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions using reported membranes and report the findings also. This would have been attractive feature of the manuscript.

Answer: This comment was highly appreciated. The explain was given in question 2, please see the answer to question 2 and the lines 5-14 on page 13 in the revised text. The main purpose of this manuscript is to develop new preparation technique of negatively charged hybrid membranes. As the referee’s comment suggested,when the membrane properties are greatly improved, their applications in industry will be further investigated.

 

 

Finally, we appreciate very much for your time in editing our manuscript and the referees for their valuable suggestions and comments. I am looking forward to hearing from your final decision when it is made.

虽然有一些实验没有补充，但是文章还是发表了。

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