Effect of Sb-Doped SnO₂ Nanostructures on Electrocatalytic Performance of a Pt Catalyst for Methanol Oxidation Reaction

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript reported the methanol oxidation of Pt/ATO. The catalyst had already reported as below. Author should point out the new insights in the manuscript in detail.

Some unclear points were listed. Reviewer judged that the manuscript should be rejected.

 

1) New insight

The methanol oxidation of Pt/ATO was reported as below;

Author should explain the new insights in detail.

* Catalysis TodayVolume 146, Issues 1–215 August 2009Pages 15-19

*Journal of Power SourcesVolume 196, Issue 151 August 2011Pages 6228-6231

* Journal of CatalysisVolume 258, Issue 115 August 2008Pages 143-152

*Nano EnergyVolume 2, Issue 5September 2013Pages 553-578

 

2) CV

Why the CV curve leaned against the X axis ? The lean indicates the high resistivity of Pt/ATO, though the ATO-350 had high electrical conductivity (1.3 S cm-2).

Why the ECSA of Pt on ATO was less than 20 m2 g-1 ? The geometrical surface area of Pt on ATO was estimated to be 70m 2 g-1 from the mean Pt particle size.

 

3) Electrical conductivity

Why the electrical conductivity of ATO-350 enhanced twice as large as that of ATO-300 (Fig.5) ? Both supports has similar specific surface area (table 1), indicating that the morphology of both ATO were same to each other. The Sb5+ (in 5 mol% Sb) of ATO-350 increased only 17% from that of ATO-300.

 

4) Activity

Author should show the specific activity of each catalysts to compare the each catalyst activity.

 

5) XPS

Why each Sb peak of (b) was shifted compared with the others ?

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Many thanks for your correspondence concerning the manuscript: “Effect of Sb-doped SnO₂ nanostructures on electrocatalytic performance of a Pt catalyst for methanol oxidation reaction”

 

I thank reviewer for her/his comments. The revised manuscript addresses all points made by the reviewer (see the attached comments).

 

Furthermore, the draft of our paper was elaborately edited by a professional English editor (as shown in the Certificate of Editing).

 

Thank you very much for your help with this manuscript. I hope it is now in a form suitable for publication in Catalysts.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper reports the preparation and electrochemical evaluation of Sb-doped SnO₂ nanostructures supporting Pt catalyst for methanol oxidation reaction. Heating treatment at 350 °C in air provided Sb-doped SnO₂ support with high electrical conductivity and optimized specific surface area. Finally, the authors compared their anode catalyst with other architectures. This work contains numerous data that demonstrate the superiority of ATO-350.

I consider that this manuscript is worthy to be published after addressing the following (minor) issues.

1. The abstract should be written in present tense.
2. Line 57: it should be “to increase its electrical conductivity”
3. Please specify semiconducting-type of conductivity for Sb-doped SnO₂
4. line 95: please describe the form of samples for electrical measurements. Are they pellets? If so, how they were prepared?
5. Values of particle size should be expressed with only one decimal.
6. The authors should discuss the decrease of particle size for ATO heated at 400 °C.
7. Particle sizes should be listed in Table 1.
8. The authors report a optimum conductivity for the sample ATO-350 but did not discuss this result. Is any effect from the grain boundaries?
9. The scanning rate should be mentioned in caption of Fig. 12

Author Response

Many thanks for your correspondence concerning the manuscript: “Effect of Sb-doped SnO₂ nanostructures on electrocatalytic performance of a Pt catalyst for methanol oxidation reaction”

 

I thank reviewer for her/his comments. The revised manuscript addresses all points made by the reviewer (see the attached comments).

 

Furthermore, the draft of our paper was elaborately edited by a professional English editor (as shown in the Certificate of Editing).

 

Thank you very much for your help with this manuscript. I hope it is now in a form suitable for publication in Catalysts.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Park et al. reports Sb-doped SnO2 nanostructures as supports instead of carbon of Pt/C catalysts for methanol oxidation reaction. The Sb-doped SnO2 addresses the issues of bad conductivity of pure SnO2 and carbon corrosion of Pt/C under reaction conditions, leading to higher activity and stability of methanol oxidation. Studies presented in this work are well conducted. The manuscript is recommended for publication in Catalysts after addressing some comments below.

1. The loadings of Pt/C, Pt/ATO and Pt/ATO-35O are all 20wt%, and they also have similar particle size. Why are their ECSAs so different? ECSA-corrected current densities should be provided in Figure 8. It seems that the higher activity of Pt/ATO-350 is attributed to its high ECSA. Why does the intrinsic activity decrease compared to Pt/C?
2. The activity at 0.65V and stability at 0.7V were compared. Why were different potentials chosen in such comparisons?

Author Response

Many thanks for your correspondence concerning the manuscript: “Effect of Sb-doped SnO₂ nanostructures on electrocatalytic performance of a Pt catalyst for methanol oxidation reaction”

 

I thank reviewer for her/his comments. The revised manuscript addresses all points made by the reviewer (see the attached comments).

 

Furthermore, the draft of our paper was elaborately edited by a professional English editor (as shown in the Certificate of Editing).

 

Thank you very much for your help with this manuscript. I hope it is now in a form suitable for publication in Catalysts.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscipt will be suitable for publication in the Journal