Reviewer #1:
The manuscript ”Amphipathic Janus nanofibers aerogel for efficient solar
steam generation.” by Rui Wang et al. presents a novel
hydrophile/hydrophobe amphipathic Janus nanofibers aerogel, which can be
used as a host material for constructing the solar steam generator. The
prepared solar steam generator exhibits excellent water evaporation,
desalination and removal of organic pollutants performances. I have
several concerns as follows:
Comment 1: Currently, there are many solar evaporators with
Janus structure. What are the advantages of amphipathic Janus nanofibers
aerogel evaporator compared to other Janus evaporators?
Response 1: As the respected reviewer mentioned, many solar
evaporators with Janus structure have been reported. However, all of
these reported solar evaporators are “macroscopically” Janus
structure. As we described in the original manuscript: “To date, there
have been many reports on macroscopical combination of hydrophilic and
hydrophobic materials for SSG, that is, hydrophilic and hydrophobic
materials are separated in different regions of the reported solar steam
generators, but no research on their microscopical combination can be
found”, the already reported solar evaporators with Janus structure can
fall into macroscopical combination of hydrophilic and hydrophobic
materials, in which the hydrophobic materials only provide the function
of floating. In our work, the amphipathic Janus nanofibers aerogel is
“microscopically” Janus structure. In addition to providing
self-floating function, the hydrophobic PVB components also can limit
internal water content, suppress salt deposition and inhibit volume
expansion of swollen CA components (the discussion on inhibition of
volume expansion is newly added in the revised manuscript), and these
properties are owing to the “microscopically” Janus structure of
amphipathic Janus nanofibers aerogel. In order to more clearly point out
the advantages of this “microscopically” Janus structure, relevant
parts of the manuscript are revised.
Comment 2: The authors may need to evaluate the performance of
the material after 10 cycles to further show that the long-term
evaporation does not affect the material performance.
Response 2: As the respected reviewer suggested, the
reusability testing is extended to 20 cycles, as shown in the revised
manuscript. Due to the one-month time limit for submitting the revised
manuscript, we can only conduct 20 cycles testing at present, and longer
reusability testing can be provided when the final manuscript is
submitted.
Comment 3: The real photographs of CA//PVB Janus nanofibers
aerogel and the solar steam generator should be provided.
Response 3: As the respected reviewer’s request, the
photographs of CA//PVB Janus nanofibers aerogel and the solar steam
generator are provided in the revised manuscript.
Comment 4: In this paper, the effects of aerogel density,
loading capacity and photothermal material composition on its
performance were studied respectively, and detailed conclusions and
comprehensive results should be given.
Response 4: The detailed conclusions and comprehensive results
for the optimized parameters are clarified in the revised manuscript.