A One-Pot Hydrothermal Preparation of High Loading Ni/La2O3 Catalyst for Efficient Hydrogenation of Cinnamaldehyde
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article presents a direct language that facilitates the review, however some details and specific issues need to be better presented, corrected or discussed by the authors, as described in annex.
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Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript studies the catalyst property of Ni-La2O3 with the change of Ni concentration. The catalytic performance improves with the Ni concentration, the H2 pressure, and the temperature. The authors report excellent catalytic repeatability and chemical stability after 5 consecutive recycling tests. However, to improve the current manuscript, I believe the following comments should be addressed:
Comments 1): H2-TPR profiles vary significantly with the Ni concentration. However, the chemical state of Ni stays almost the same for different Ni concentrations in the XPS results. Please explain this discrepancy.
Comments 2): The experimental details need to be added. XPS for example, what is the calibration standard of XPS binding energy? Which standard is followed? ASTM E2108-16 standard (DOI: 10.1520/E2108-16) or any other standard? The binding energy has to be carefully calibrated to draw any conclusion about the XPS spectra in this work. What is the energy resolution step of binding energy? For TEM, is EDX or EELS used for the element mapping? What are the parameters used? Similarly, details need to be added for all the characterization techniques.
Comments 3): The layout of Figure 2 needs to be reconsidered carefully to avoid the distortion of the images/scales. Traditionally, the binding energy of XPS decreases from left to right of the spectra to correspond to the increase of kinetic energy. Please correct.
Comments 4): In line 137, the authors mentioned “and four diffraction peaks detected were assigned to La 3d5/2 (at 838.5 and 834.8 eV) and La 3d3/2 (at 855.5, 851.7 eV).” How could XPS show diffraction peaks? XPS peaks represent the intensity of photoelectrons, associated with the elements, detected by the energy analyzer.
Comments 5): Is the concentration of Ni characterized by XPS and EDS/EELS consistent with the nominal concentration? I suggest the authors not normalize the XPS spectra. Showing the raw data can directly present the concentration by the intensity.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The work presented here is of high importance, considering the substrate and teh class to which it belongs. The work is good and teh authors present sufficient evidence for teh catalyst structures, and catalytic performance. The authors compare the Ni catalysts to Co catalysts, but these are mentioned for teh first time in the catalytic testing section with no mention as to why. The reason for including them in teh testing must be emphasised in teh introduction.
The authors will need to pay attention to the English and grammar. It is poor in places; (see comments and some corrections done in annotated manuscript) and must be improved since it interferes with the flow of the paper. Check the legends in teh graphs. There are errors; as well as formatting errors in the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
Comments to the Authors
In this manuscript authors studied the efficiency of Rhodotorula mucilaginosa 1S1 as an Ag(I) biosorbent and at the same time its ability to biosynthesize recoverable silver nanoparticles. This article has value for the researchers in the related areas. However, the paper needs improvement before acceptance for publication. My detailed comments are as follow:
1. In the introduction section authors should introduced following relevant articles of AgNPs as reference and their corresponding discussion.
a. doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2020.104596
b. doi.org/10.1007/s40089-021-00362-w
2. There are few typos and grammatical errors authors should correct it.
3. Authors should write objective of the work more clearly in the last of introduction.
4. What is the future scope of such study in near future?
5. The writing of conclusion section should be improved.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors made several corrections to the manuscript that made the text clearer, however some issues raised in the first review were not addressed in this corrected version.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been improved significantly. I suggest accepting the current version for publication.
Author Response
Thank reviewer very much for good evaluation and comments on our manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
