One Step Production of Silver-Copper (AgCu) Nanoparticles

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Figure 5 shows the X-ray diffractograms of the materials obtained. As the Ag and Cu peaks appear separately, the authors did not obtain AgCu nanoparticles, but a mixture of Ag and Cu!

Author Response

Firstly, the authors would like to thank to reviewer and editor for the collaboration in the improvement of the work. The manuscript was revised and corrections were made based on the reviewer’s suggestions. The responses to the comments of the reviewers are listed next and the corrections made are highlighted in the revised manuscript.  Attached you can find our answers!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

• Line 43; why is the change in lattice constant making the fabrication difficult?
• Line 45, over-exaggerated. Authors have provided insignificant (i.e. none) proof of the importance of copper to claim that it is the “most important” metal used.
• Line 52-53, citations are missing
• Figures 1 & 2 are poorly presented. The font size of the figures is too small. The Axis of the plots is not noticeable if there is any. Labels are missing; what do the “blue” and “red” curves represent?
• Analysis of Figures 1, 2 & 3 on how the data results in the chemical equations provided in the text is poorly written. Heavy revisions are needed to improve the quality of the written paragraphs. E.g. authors have never addressed why the reader should care about Gibb’s free energy. The significance of the results acquired from the data was not evident to the reader.
• Labels for equations should be consistent. E.g. the font size for equation 3 has a larger font size than the other equations presented, while equation 5 is bolded but the others are not
• Figure 6 & 8, same problem as Figures 1 & 2. Error bars for the values in the plots?
• Figures 7& 9, scale bars of the images are missing or too small. Labels for the figures are too small, not noticeable.

Author Response

Firstly, the authors would like to thank to reviewer and editor for the collaboration in the improvement of the work. The manuscript was revised and corrections were made based on the reviewer’s suggestions. The responses to the comments of the reviewers are listed next and the corrections made are highlighted in the revised manuscript. Attached you can find our answers!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In this manuscript, Münevver Köroğlu et. al has studied the synthesis of a series of silver-copper (AgCu) alloy nanoparticles. The results are interesting. The manuscript can be accepted after doing the following changes.
 
Detailed comments are as follows:
1)  The authors should revise the introduction section of the manuscript to justify the importance of the project. Also, some recent advances in Ag-Cu NCs using wet-chemical methods should be disucssed and cited.
2)  The English of the manuscript needs improvement. The authors should check the paper in detail.
3)  The authors should write chemical equations correctly.
4)  The JCPDS standard cards (Ag and Cu) should be added in Figure 5. The quality of XRD pattern is also needed to be improved. Too much overlap.
5)  The font size of the label of the Figure 7 should be increased proportionally.

Author Response

Firstly, the authors would like to thank to reviewer and editor for the collaboration in the improvement of the work. The manuscript was revised and corrections were made based on the reviewer’s suggestions. The responses to the comments of the reviewers are listed next and the corrections made are highlighted in the revised manuscript. Attached you can find our answers!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

In this work, the authors used hydrogen reduction assisted Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis and Hydrogen Reduction to prepare AgCu alloy nanoparticles, and studied the change in the morphology and crystal structure of alloy particles using different concentrated precursors, and the antibacterial properties of nanoparticles. The experimental phenomena about this work are relatively abundant and the explanations are relatively sufficient. This work highlights the novelty of its preparation method, which will certainly to attract many readerships. It will be suitable for publication in this journal after the authors address the following points:

1. The author should give the DLS characterization of the sample, because the SEM may only represent the local size of the sample.
2. The size of the AgCu nanoparticles in the picture is different. What are the influencing factors? Can the uniformity be regulated as much as possible?
3. Several scales are missing in Figure 9.
4. There are problems with the writing of the chemical formula in the equation in Figure 3.

Author Response

Firstly, the authors would like to thank to reviewer and editor for the collaboration in the improvement of the work. The manuscript was revised and corrections were made based on the reviewer’s suggestions. The responses to the comments of the reviewers are listed next and the corrections made are highlighted in the revised manuscript. Attached you can find our answers!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The formula AgCu means a compound with an atom of Ag and an atom of Cu, ordered, with a structural position occupied mainly by Ag and another by Cu. This is definitely not what the authors got. They synthesized a mixture of the compound (Ag,Cu) with the compound (Cu,Ag). The article needs to be completely rewritten, making this clear, as it is misleading as it stands. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for your invested time and very important Suggestion regarding our preparation of AgCu nanoparticles.

"The formula AgCu means a compound with an atom of Ag and an atom of Cu, ordered, with a structural position occupied mainly by Ag and another by Cu. This is definitely not what the authors got. They synthesized a mixture of the compound (Ag,Cu) with the compound (Cu,Ag). The article needs to be completely rewritten, making this clear, as it is misleading as it stands."

We are fully agreed with your statement, that we have prepared a mixture of the compound (Ag,Cu) with the compound (Cu,Ag), not AgCu-alloy. Therefore this article is fully rewritten. I hope that our Statement about preparation of AgCu-particles is now correct.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

For this manuscript to be correct, everywhere it reads "AgCu", it should have "a mixture of (Ag,Cu) with (Cu,Ag)”, but it seems that the authors are not willing to write like that. Also, I saw that it is a tradition, that in many articles it is used to misspell “AgCu.” So, publish it anyway.