Enhancing the Effectiveness of Oxygen Evolution Reaction by Electrodeposition of Transition Metal Nanoparticles on Nickel Foam Material
, Tomasz Mikołajczyk 1,*, Mateusz Kuczyński 1, Bogusław Pierożyński 1,* and Ireneusz M. Kowalski 2Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article describes the electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity on nickel foam- 15 based electrodes.
The manuscript is well-structured, although some concerns must be addressed:
- Please modify the title in order to be more “readable”, especially the long expression: “The Enhancing the Effectiveness of Oxygen Evolution Reaction” (it is a little redundant…..)
- Please improve the “Introduction” section. At this moment, it is too short and it does not reveal the state-of-the-art.
- Figure 1 must be on a single page, not split! Also, in Figure 1, (a) and (b), please recolour the text from the left side in order to be visible.
- Table 1 must be also on a single page.
- All figures and tables must be included after their first mention in the text.
- Please verify with it is so much blank space on page 10!
- At the “Materials and methods” section, please introduce, beside the producer, the city and country.
- It is mandatory that the English language is revised by a native English speaker.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript describes novel nickel foam base materials for electrocatalytic water electrolysis. The introduction is clear and provides all necessary background. Electrodes made of pure nickel, and those modified with cobalt and molybdenum species have been studied. The manuscript is sufficiently detailed and provides enough experimental data to characterize the novel composites. In my opinion, this work can be recommended for publication after correction the minor problems:
1) Lines 259-260: Please state the exact grade (in % or as a trademark) of sulphuric acid used.
2) Table 4: Purity of cobalt, sodium, potassium and molybdenum source materials (salts) seems to be not stated.
3) Table 4: Please replace “Amount g L-1” with “Concentration M”, as this is chemically correct. Please also clarify if CoCl2 was an anhydrous salt or hydrate.
4) Table 4: Was pH of 4.5 (cobalt deposition) adjusted somehow and/or kept with some buffer?
5) Lines 99-101: the Authors wrote “The Mo modification caused a slight shift of the oxidation and reduction peaks to more and less positive potentials, respectively”. How was it concluded since no obvious peaks are visible for Mo/Ni foam in Figure 2?
6) Lines 323-326: the Authors conclude that “The results of this work showed a real possibility for replacing expensive and scarcely found in the environment noble metals with significantly cheaper transition metals for the mass production of commercial alkaline water electrolysers.”. This looks to be optimistic. However, there is no direct comparison of the present Ni, Co/Ni and Mo/Ni electrodes with those made of “...expensive and scarcely found in the environment noble metals...”. The Table 3 makes some comparison, but no noble metals are present therein. To support the above conclusion, please add a table where the parameters of the present electrocatalysts are compared with noble metals ones, under similar conditions. This would make the manuscript much simpler and more attractive to readers.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I have no other comments than the manuscript can be published in the present revised form.
