Stable Surface Technology for HER Electrodes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this article, the authors present their experimental results for improving the stainless steel electrode. They also compare the surface morphology and elemental properties of their developed electrode with a commercial one. The current topic is a very hot scientific topic as the governments are hugely investing in hydrogen to achieve the global net-zero goal. The authors' findings are important and can have implication in economic hydrogen production. However, the text of the article requires some serious editing to shape a sound scientific article. Accordingly, I would recommend publishing this article after addressing the following comments and concerns:

• The abstract has been written by copying different parts of the main text. I would encourage writing a new independent abstract.
• The introduction requires serious attention from the authors.
  • The authors mentioned, “worldwide energy consumption has been increasing rapidly due to the development of science and technology”. Science and technology development obviously is not the main and only reason and there are many more reasons. For example, population growth, etc.
  • The authors mentioned “The energy demand is expected to increase to 30 Terawatt (TW) in 2050” This is wrong. The current world primary energy demand is around 583 EJ (10^6 TW) ( reference: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.1c00845 ) . The number that the authors mentioned could be the average energy consumption “rate”.
  • You can use the suggested reference to better organise the first paragraph and provide better reasoning for the research. You can provide different parameters for H2 properties such as energy density or volumetric density. Moreover, you can explain better why hydrogen is a good solution for achieving a clean future.
  • Based on my suggestion I would recommend re-structuring the first two paragraphs.
  • Many of the recent studies which are closely related to the topic of the article is missing from the introduction. Accordingly, I would recommend updating the literature review using references from 2021 and 2020. Please also briefly (1-2 sentences) discuss different research paths for improving stainless steel-based cathodic electrodes.
  • The last paragraph of the introduction contains informal English, please revise it.
• Line 113: what is your justification for choosing 75s as the optimal electrodeposition time?
• Table 1: check the data in this table as it seems they have been rounded. The summation of sum columns is slightly higher than 100.
• Please provide more details about the preparation of the stainless steel electrode. I think the patent you cited did a good job of describing their methodology. I would recommend getting an idea from there to describe your methodology. Please also highlight the differences.
• Line 167: the authors properly described the results they have observed during SEM and EDS data analysis. However, this is the only part they mentioned the implications of their study on hydrogen production. Accordingly, a more detailed discussion is required to make the article broadly accessible to the wider scientific community.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have studied the surface morphology and compositions of stainless steel-based electrodes before and after silver nanoparticle deposition by SEM and EDS techniques and mentioned that the silver nanoparticle coated electrode show high H2 production and stability. However, the authors did not mention anything about the H2 production using the prepared electrode. Also, the purpose of the study is not clear and the manuscript lacks novelty. The authors should perform HER and compare the results. I also suggest including EDS data in the main text not in the supporting information. High-resolution SEM images would give a better picture of the surface morphology. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper by Soo Kim et al. describes the surface morphology and elemental properties of the silver nanoparticle-coated invasion electrode commercialized by Inanos through SEM and EDS techniques, respectively, and it was confirmed that no traces of silver on the surface of these commercialized electrodes.

Overall, I believe that this work submitted in Catalysts cannot be published in this premature state and must be rejected, for the following reasons:

Typos:

Line 60, “Oilvares-Ramírez et al. reported” author have to check the author’s name, Olivares-Ramírez et al.

Line 120, “20.0k magnification” authors have to add a space between number and unit.

Line 162, “the patent However” authors have to add the missing doc.

1. Authors said in line 154 "However, it is notable that the Inano-Ag-IE body has a more detectable silicon component compared to the other samples (Figure S3c and Table 1). This is assumed to be because of the structure of the silver coating, which is a combination of silver (Ag) and silica (SiO2), as explained in the patent document (Figure S5)."

However, and although it is true that the body of the electrode contains the largest amount of silicon, which comes from silica, but on the contrary, it does not contain any silver. In this case the silver is located in the handle of the electrode. If silica is added to fix the silver, why is there no silver in the body of the electrode?

2. It is curious how the silica percentage decreases to zero after the silver deposition process in the conventional CE electrode. The authors should explain the reason for this effect.
3. Authors claim in the conclusion section that “Therefore, the silver nanoparticle coated electrode fabricated by electrodeposition is expected to show high H2 production and stability”. However, they do not provide any activity data for H2 production. In my opinion, the manuscript needs a catalytic test to compare the influence of silver on both electrodes.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have revised the manuscript addressing the reviewer's comments. It is much better now. I recommend its acceptance. 

Reviewer 3 Report

After the excellent revision, the manuscript can be accepted in the current form.