Synthesis of One-Dimensional Titanium Oxide Nanowires for Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membrane Optimization

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors submitted "Synthesis of one-dimensional titanium oxide nanowires for polyvinylidene fluoride membrane optimization" for publication in "Crystals". Here are my comments:

1. the authors should provide schematic preparation of materials.

2. All FTIR figures are not suitable for publication. The authors should do a baseline for all figures and assign each peak in all figures.

3. where is the description for the Table?

4. In SEM and TEM images the scale bar is unclear.

5. How about the thermal stability of these materials?

6. the assignment peaks in the XRD diffraction pattern of Titanium oxide nanowires should be provided.

7. The reviewer wonders about TGA data. all data are not acceptable and where are Y axis values?

8. English correction is needed.

 

Author Response

Thank you so for reviewing your manuscript. Response to your comments is attached here.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript offers a concise yet compelling report on the synthesis of one-dimensional titanium oxide nanowires for polyvinylidene fluoride membrane optimization. The emphasis of the study falls on the role and the originality of the proposed method for nanowire synthetization, where the incorporation of the CNTs with polymeric membrane proves an instrumental approach. The system, as described, is easily synthesizable, and the detailed characterization results (FTIR, XRD, EDS and SEM) reveal optimal properties such as size, surface geometry, crystalline features, etc. The nice comparative context of characterization results throughout the study strongly contributes to reliable scrutinization and prompting good understanding of this realistically synthesizable one-dimensional system with potentially highly useful applications.

From practical point of view, the reported results thus bring new knowledge and certainly represent an original contribution in the present context.

The authors chose an adequate structure of the manuscript – an excellent point of departure for such a study. Finally, the authors provided a balanced realistic and nicely illustrated presentation of their results and corresponding analysis that is of much scientific and practical interest and adds new knowledge to the field.

In my opinion, the fine detailing in the present work, the insightful and balanced discussion of the results, as well as the excellent, intuitively perceived figures, permit wide circle of readers to utilize the manuscript as a guidance for their potential future work in the same research field. Consequently, this manuscript presents an efficient and beneficial basis for promoting and solving next step challenges in this field.

The manuscript also benefits from a clear motivation, and it is an easy and informative read.

The present manuscript is a significant contribution, this work once published would be quite useful as well as instructive and suggestive in terms of further studies and to a wider readership.

There are some minor issues with this already excellent manuscript that will need to be addressed before becoming suitable for publication, i.e., it can be considered for publication after a minor revision:

1: Abstract should also provide short basic details of the nanowire dimensions. Also in the abstract “TGA” should be defined and not immediately used just an abbreviation. There are misprints in the abstract: “ware” should be “were” etc.

2: In the introduction, the authors partly miss some theoretical works where important structural aspects of of metal oxide properties in nanostructured membrane-like films where metal oxides are involved were addressed by ab-initio methods for similar circumstances assembled or intercalated layers/wires which were then experimentally confirmed. Such examples include: Nanoscale 12 (2020) 19470-19476;  CrystEngComm 23 (2021) 6661-6667. Such works should be referred to, showing credibility of the concept by theoretical support.

3: The authors elaborated and commented very well on thermal stability (Sec. 3.5) of the material system as studied here and as achieved experimentally. They should put this in a little bit larger context. Is the thermal stability as declared here enough for envisaged applications? How much better is it, when compared to other solutions in the realm of similar systems?

4: Spell-check and stylistic revision of the paper are still necessary. Some, long sentences, misspellings, incorrect word order, etc., still are noticeable throughout the text.

Author Response

Thank you so for reviewing your manuscript. Response to your comments is attached here.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have already answer all questions from my side and thus I suggest that this paper could be published.