Synthesis of Highly Selective and Stable Co-Cr/SAPO-34 Catalyst for the Catalytic Dehydration of Ethanol to Ethylene
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Peirong Niu et all used SAPO-34 and MexOy (Me=Cr, Co) as catalysts to investigate the catalytic performance by means of a probe reaction for the dehydration of ethanol to ethylene.
In the introduction, it is mentioned the use of metal supported SAPO-34 as catalysts for the conversion of methanol to olefin (MTO) and ethanol to olefin(ETO) but no information regarding experimental conditions is reported. And also it should be added the innovative feature of the work, so that the reader can understand the state of the art, and the contribution of this work.
From FT-IR it can be observed that the spectra is quite similar, as expected. Authors should perform an IR spectra from 500 to 100cm-1 to discuss the differences due to the presence of the metals.
The characterization of the initial catalysts is sufficient, but after the reaction TGA was performed and NH3-TDP is performed and the deactivation of the total deactivation of the catalyst occurs after the initial reaction, making impossible the reuse of the catalyst. Although mentioned, a proper scheme of the possible mechanism should be added to better understand the deactivation process, as well a more complete discussion of results compared with previous works. Also, a conclusive paragraph with the strong points of this work should be added, so that the readers can visualize the innovative points of this work.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thanks for your professional opinion. Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. All the responses are attached for your review.
Thank you and best regards!
Yours sincerely
Prof. Deyuang Xiong
Peirong Niu
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this work, SAPO-34 and MeOy (Me=Cr, Co) modified SAPO-34 were synthesized and widely characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, FT-IR, NH3 -TPD, BET and TGA techniques. As test reaction the dehydratation of ethanol to ethylene was investigated. Furthermore, the working condition has been optimized to increase the ethanol conversion.
Overall, the scope of the paper is good, and the discussion on the results is convincing.
The main concern regards the structure of the paper. The authors have a whole section of characterization (section 2 Results) later they introduce the Materials and Methods and at the end the catalytic activity is discussed. In my opinion, the author should reorder the paragraphs in one of these two ways:
Material and Method -> Result (characterization) -->Catalytic activity or
Result (characterization) --> Catalytic activity -->Material and Method.
In this way the paper would read better.
Few comments that may help revising the manuscript are reported below:
1) In the abstract the Metal modified SAPO-34 is defined MexOxy while in the paper is used the Me acronym.
2) In the introduction more general references should be added.
3) The quality of the figures is very poor. They must be improved. In particular Figure 3 and 9 are unreadable, the resolution is too low.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thanks for your professional opinion. Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. All the responses are attached for your review.
Thank you and best regards!
Yours sincerely
Prof. Deyuang Xiong
Peirong Niu
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors replied to all the comments. The paper can be publish in the present form.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript deserves publication.
