Deep Eutectic Solvents: Are They Safe?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

please see the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

 

please find attached our revision.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of DES is a good choice. The safety of DES is an unknown area and a literature review is necessary. However, this review cannot be accepted as the current version. Reasons are followed: 

1. The abstract is not well written. What is the logic chain? What messages do the authors want to deliver? 
2. The written English needs extensive edits. Grammer mistakes are very common in the review, singular/plural, tense, and punctuation, etc. 
3. As a review paper, it should include a summary of most updated literture on this topic; However, this review only cited 54 articles. Even though the authors stated that the number of articles discussing DES are increasing, most of the articles were published before 2015. It is simply not convincing. 
4. Some of the statements lack supports and explainations. For instance, in the first paragraph, "none of them presented all the requirements for substitute the traditional solvents", lets ignore the grammer mistake in this sentence, the statement is absolute and subjective. The authors used only one literature to back it up, weak and not convincing. 
5. In section 3.2, if there is no literature discussing terrestrial toxicity, what can researchers do? The authors should at least give some suggestions for it. 
6. The authors did not give a future perspective. What are the authors' vision? What is the future of this field? This is a necessary part of a review paper but the authors did not provide any. 

In conclusion, in my humble opinion, this review is not eligible to publish on Applied Sciences as of now. Extensive amount of work might be needed.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

 

please find attached our comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The reviewer presented by the authors is interesting because DES is an emerging kind of solvent but the impact on the environment and humans is not clear. However the authors should strong improve the manuscript according to the following comments:

• The authors should add the criticism of each type of solvent reported at lines 24-25
• What does it means “its pure substances” at line 28? Before the authors should describe the DES under chemical point of view.
• "potential application" at line 29. Why? Which are the main properties of DES that make them so promising? In order to highlight the importance of DES the authors should cite some articles where DES have been adopted as solvent.
• Lines 36–38. This part should be introduced before line 28.
• Lines 49-50. This part should be introduced before line 29.
• Line 80. Do the authors mean Choline chloride? If yes, correct also at line 82.
• The authors should better introduce the sentence at lines 169-172. Why they compare DES with ionic liquid? What do they mean? At the moment the sentence is decontextualized.
• Line 186. Which DES? If it is note specified also the comments below are not clear.
• Line 215. Which temperature? Melting temperature? Specify.
• Line 217, "higher in ...". Respect to which other DES?
• Line 229, "with a viscosity". High?Low? How should be the viscosity? Is there a limit value?
• If there are not any literature regarding the terrestrial biomodels the authors should not make a paragraph but only write that there are not reference.
• Rewrite sentence at line 437
• How the amount of water influence the biodegradability? 
• On the basis of the toxicity, ecotoxicity and biodebradability, the authors should comment in the conclusion section which type of DES could be more promising and sustainable, taking into account also collateral parameters such as the amount of water in order to understand if it is better to work with anhydrous DES or if it is uninfluent.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

please see attached our comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors took into consideration all the suggestions proposed and I think that now the paper can be published however some minor revisions are still needed:

• The abbreviations should be in a table form and in alphabetic order, for example:

DES – Deep eutectic solvents

ILs – Ionic liquids

• Also, in the abbreviations, the authors forgot to refer that the scCO2 is supercritical carbon dioxide and not just carbon dioxide;
• Line 342 biomodels is misspelled as well as such in the same line;
• A revision of the English should be performed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,  

 

Thank you very much for your second mail revision of the manuscript “Deep Eutectic Solvents: are they safe” (Manuscript ID: applsci-1399192). Information about the changes introduced is given below. We include the main changes and additions in red to ease the verification.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors improved the quality of the manuscript significantly. I recommend to accept this version. 

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for their assessment of the modifications made.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has been strongly improved and it is ready for publication.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for their assessment of the modifications made.