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.