Facile Synthesis of Iron-Based MOFs MIL-100(Fe) as Heterogeneous Catalyst in Kabachnick Reaction
and Ahmed S. Abou-Elyazed 1,4,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors reported the activity of MIL-100 Metal Organic Framework on the reaction of the synthesis of alpha-aminophosphonates, namely the Kabachnick reaction. The novelty of the study arises for the use of MIL-100 MOF as an heterogeneous catalyst for this reaction. Authors reported the activity and the stability of the catalyst, which makes the study novel and interesting for the Catalysis community. Therefore, I recommend publication after addressing the following specific points:
Scheme 1 should be updated and transformed into a reaction scheme. The reaction arrows, temperature duration of the reaction should be written on it.
It is not clear why the product yield decreases with the increasing of the temperature. It is described very shortly. A better elaboration is needed to explain this observation. It doesn’t also decrease steadily; the last temperature is higher than the previous one. Error bars could be added.
I recommend removing figure 1. It doesn’t provide any new information. And its quality is low.
In Figure 4 a’, how was the particle size determined? The description is needed. The SEM picture provided shows crystals connected to each other. It is not easy to understand how it is determined.
The following corrections for the typos are recommended. I recommend to correct the following phrases:
Introduction, last paragraph: “…knowledge, a rare study has been conducted on the…”; “…knowledge, hardly any study has been conducted on the…”
Section 2.3: ..furnished with… ..equipped with…
Section 2.4: text shouldn’t be italics font.
Figure 6: The wavenumbers described in the text in FT-IR section is better to be highlighted on the figure with symbols.
Table 1: the “wt%” should be deleted from individual inserts and it should be written in parenthesis next to the “Catalyst amount” in the title row.
Scheme 2 is made to look 3D, the text doesn’t look proper. It should be made 2D. I recommend to remove the purple colour either.
Author Response
please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have used MIL-100(Fe) as a catalyst for the synthesis of α-aminophosphonates that are a set of important molecules. However, the manuscript is not prepared at a suitable level for publication and should be revised before publication.
I have some comments below, please consider them while revising the paper:
The introduction lacks a deep discussion what is the recent advances in MOFs and what are the drawbacks, and what can be the solution; therefore, recent review papers should be mentioned and cited in the introduction, for example, the review of MOFs as catalyst in organic reactions which is published in Microporous and Mesoporous Materials journal in 2018. Another important one is published in Chemical Society Reviews in 2021, vol. 50 page 2927-2953.
The mechanism of the reaction should be also corrected, it is not correct.
Figure 1 is so rudimental, and a unique and informative one should replace it.
I think the authors have made a mistake in the XRD patterns. Both the experimental and the simulated ones are identical! How they claim them as separate sources.
The Kabbanchik reaction has been reported many times with a variety of heterogeneous catalysts. What is the standpoint for this catalyst? What makes this catalyst distinguished from others? Would you please provide a table and compare the results and conditions? For example, this reaction is reported with IRMOF-3, Seaweed‐derived κ‐carrageenan, ß-cyclodextrin modified Fe3O4, etc.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have revised the paper accordingly, and it can be published in the current format.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his/her constructive comments, accordingly we have thoroughly revised the manuscript. We see our manuscript is now suitable for publication in its current form.
