Catalytic Production of Functional Monomers from Lysine and Their Application in High-Valued Polymers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors well reviewed the industrial strategies of catalytic transformation of lysine for polymer production, as well as the important properties of the polymers originally synthesized from lysine.  This review was of great importance in introducing the use of biomass-based amino acid. So, it can be accepted after several revisions.

 

1)      How about the advantages of the price of final products using lysine as starting materials comparing with the fossil-based materials.

2)      How about the investment in plant establishing, much cost effective or not?

3)      The format of citing reference should be revised.  Such as, “…..development to human society in succession [1-3]. ”   not   “……development to human society in succession. [1-3]”

Author Response

Point 1: How about the advantages of the price of final products using lysine as starting materials comparing with the fossil-based materials.

Response 1: According to the literature cited in our review, the price of lysine has decreased to ca. $1.5 per kilogram since 2013. Such a quotation on the market is comparable with fossil-based raw materials (adipic acid (ca. $1.4 per kilogram), ε-caprolactam (ca. $1.7 per kilogram), etc.). Thus, combined with reliable catalytic strategies, we consider that the target lysine-based products are competitive with fossil-based commodities.

Point 2: How about the investment in plant establishing, much cost effective or not?

Response 2: According to the comparison between the price of maize (ca. $ 0.4 per kilogram) and lysine (ca. $1.7 per kilogram), we suggest that on the basis of the mature fermentation technologies, the investment in plant establishing is cost effective.

Point 3: The format of citing reference should be revised.  Such as, “…..development to human society in succession [1-3]. ”   not   “……development to human society in succession. [1-3]”

Response 3: We have revised the format of citing references.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Lysine is a very important chemical material that would surely call much attention in the future. The review about the application of lysine is urgently needed. Liu et al. review the downstream valuable products from lysine including some polymers. And the detailed catalytic processes and application fields are also compared in this work. There are some suggestions listed in the following.

1. More detailed information should be given in Table 1, such as the reaction conditions, chemical reaction equations, raw materials, etc., which can show more to the readers.

2. Section 3 is an important part and should be discussed further.

(1) the basic properties and application of each polymer.

(2) An information-rich table can be added including reaction conditions of Lys to polymer, chemical reaction equations, etc.

(3) In each subsection, the author should stress more about the advantages and disadvantages of the production process of Lys to polymer compared with conventional routes.

3. In Section 4, the present situation, limitations of Lys development, and the future development direction should be discussed extensively.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript describes production of several monomers from lysine.  It gives an overview of use, production and economical values of these monomers. 

I expected that the manucript describe the catalytic process with the aid of figures. This is the major drawback of the manuscript.

In figure 3, Benzene to cyclohexanone is overall a reduction reaction. But, it is shown as oxidation in the figure.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf