From Equilibrium Liquid Crystal Formation and Kinetic Arrest to Photonic Bandgap Films Using Suspensions of Cellulose Nanocrystals
, Johanna R. Bruckner 2,†, Camila Honorato-Rios 1, Zornitza Tosheva 1, Manos Anyfantakis 1,* and Jan P. F. Lagerwall 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors present an in-depth review of the lyotropic cholesteric liquid crystal phase developed by suspensions of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). The review focuses primarily on the physics and physical chemistry of CNC suspensions and the process of drying them. The review is quite interesting and very well written, enabling the reader to gain an understanding of the underlying physics of the materials. In fact, the review gets the reader excited about the research possibilities of CNC suspensions. It is recommended that this review be published in Crystals.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the positive and encouraging comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editor,
This review is a rich source for all those working on understanding the liquid crystalline behavior of cellulose nanocrystal suspensions. It is well written and thoroughly covers all aspects of this topic. I recommend accepting this review after minor revision:
-The authors need to revise L171-180. There is some confusion on how CNCs and CNFs are produced. The authors for instance in L179-180 mention that CNCs are produced from CNFs, which is not true. CNCs and CNFs in general are produced directly from cellulose fibers. In L174 considering purification and homogenization as one step is pretty confusing. In general wood is pulped to isolate 20-40 micrometer cellulose fibers, which then are either hydrolyzed to liberate the cellulose crystallites in the form of CNCs, or mechanically fibrillated into CNFs. Therefore, the paragraph has to be rewritten to tackle these points. Please check Chapter two in DOI: 10.1021/bk-2017-1251.ch002 and section 4.4 in DOI: 10.3390/polym12010195.
-In Figure 1, what is the scale bar of the AFM images before and after sonication?
-Please check the whole review for language mistakes and typos. There is one or two per page.
Other than that, the review is excellent.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the positive and encouraging comments, and for pointing out the mistakes s/he found. Concerning these, we have:
1) revised the section on CNC production (L171-180), and we now hope the description is correct;
2) added the mention of the scale bar value to the figure caption (it is also in the figure);
3) gone through the whole manuscript meticulously for typos and language mistakes.
If some English mistakes still remain that we did not catch, we apologize for this, and hope that the MDPI typesetters will notice and correct also these.
