Bimetallic PdCo Nanoparticles Loaded in Amine Modified Polyacrylonitrile Hollow Spheres as Efficient Catalysts for Formic Acid Dehydrogenation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please consider the attached review and suggestions.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1
General Comments: The experimental work address the study of Bimetallic PdCo Nanoparticles Loaded in Amine Modified Polyacrylonitrile Hollow Spheres as Efficient Catalysts for Formic Acid Dehydrogenation. It is an interesting work and can be published, however some questions need to be answered and thus a new submission is necessary for a new review. The reasons are as follows.
Response: Thanks a lot for the positive evaluation and the very helpful suggestions on our work.
Comment 1. Please, show a Schematic illustration of the fabrication process of silicon@carbon hollow.
Response: According to this suggestion, a schematic illustration of the fabrication process of the hollow sphere support has been provided, as shown in Scheme 1 of the revised manuscript.
Comment 2. Please, write a subsection about the Preparation of the hollow nanospheres.
Response: A subsection about the preparation of the hollow nanospheres has been added in the revised manuscript (see page 9 - 11).
Comment 3. Please, write a subsection about Characterization.
Response: A subsection about Characterization has been provided (see page from 2 to 6).
Comment 4. Please correct Figure -03.
Response: Figure 3 has been corrected, including the unit of axis and the marked peak position.
Comment 5. Please, write a subsection about Electrochemical characterization.
Response: A subsection of various physical characterizations has been provided in the revised manuscript (see page 11).
Comment 6. Please, in the introduction write more about green energy engineering. Please, cite bibliographic references. Some suggestions. [1] Li, X. (2011). Green energy. Springer. [2] Oncel, S. S. (2017). [1]. Journal of cleaner production, 142, 3095-310
Response: More description about green energy engineering has been provided by citing the related references proposed by referee (see page 1, ref. 1 and 2).
Comment 7. The authors comment on hydrogen storage but do not cite bibliographical references and its main Physical/chemical characteristics. Please make this topic clear in the introduction.
Response: We have cited two review articles (ref. 3 and 4) for emphasizing the main physical/chemical characteristics of hydrogen storage based on formic acid, as shown in the section of Introduction of the revised manuscript (see page 1, and ref. 3 and 4).
Comment 8. Please, elaborate a Scheme Modified Polyacrylonitrile with Bimetallic PdCo Nanoparticles material.
Response: We have added related details in Scheme 1 for elaborating the modification process with the bimetallic PdCo nanoparticles (see Scheme 1 in revised version).
Comment 9. The topic is frequently mentioned in the literature and presents several results. So what would be the impact of your research on the scientific community?
Response: According to this comment, we tried to provide some additional information to emphasize the impact of our research work on the related scientific community (see page 12, revised version), as also shown below.
We believe that more efficient Pd-based catalysts will be developed for the dehydrogenation of FA under mild condition by further tuning the morphologies and surface properties of the polymer support of polyacrylonitrile, which can certainly provide novel opportunities for promoting the development of the green energy engineering in near future.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript can be published after considering the following: 1- English Language needs improvement. There are grammar and spelling mistakes such as: Line 31 in page 1 CO2 was written carbon oxide and it should be written as carbon dioxide. Line 287 in page 10 the sentence must be revised. the whole manuscript needs proofreading. 2- Figure2 in page 4, TEM images are not very clear, Pd and Co NP must be labeled in the images and the particle size distribution of Pd and Co should be added to the figure. 3- I suggest they measure the catalytic properties of the support EDA-HPAN itself without Pd and Co NP and add its result to the figure.Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2:
General Comments: This manuscript can be published after considering the following.
Response: Thanks a lot for the very helpful comments/suggestions on our work.
Comment 1. English Language needs improvement. There are grammar and spelling mistakes such as: Line 31 in page 1 CO2 was written carbon oxide and it should be written as carbon dioxide. Line 287 in page 10 the sentence must be revised. The whole manuscript needs proofreading.
Response: Thanks for the correction. The wrong expression of carbon oxide has been corrected, and the sentence in page 10 has also been revised. In addition, the English language of the whole manuscript has been polished.
Comment 2. Figure 2 in page 4, TEM images are not very clear, Pd and Co NP must be labeled in the images and the particle size distribution of Pd and Co should be added to the figure.
Response: According this suggestion, the PdCo NPs shown in the TEM images (Figure 2) have been labeled for easily observing, and the distribution of the nanoparticles has been added to the figure (see updated Figure 2).
Comment 3. I suggest they measure the catalytic properties of the support EDA-HPAN itself without Pd and Co NP and add its result to the figure.
Response: As suggested by referee, the catalytic properties of the support EDA-HPAN have been measured, which is nearly inactive under the test conditions. The related experimental result has been mentioned in the revised manuscript (see page 7 and Figure S4).
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Accept in present form.
