Modern and Dedicated Methods for Producing Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Layers in Sensing Applications
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Ana-Mihaela Gavrila et al. proposed a review paper to demonstrate the progress of MIP layers synthesized by various modern and dedicated techniques such as surface polymerization, sol-gel technique, phase-inversion and hybrid methods. The topic is interesting and falls in the scope of this journal. The review paper is organized in a logic way and presented in a relatively clear mode. So I suggested that this paper can be accepted once the following concerns are corrected.
- Figures: All figures are presented in poor quality, too obscure.
- Most references are too old and not within the scope of recent 5 years. It would be helpful if the authors summarize more recent studies. Moreover, too old and common knowledge can be deleted to reduce the length of this paper.
- It would be helpful to use tables or diagrams to compare the advantages of disadvantages of different MIP preparation methods.
- It would be helpful to add the future perspective comments in the conclusion part. Currently, the conclusion is too simple. For instance, it would be helpful to discuss if the MIP layer can be applied with optical biosensors to realize the environmental monitoring, such as estrogen screening (Light: Science & Applications, 2021, 10, 181) or highly sensitive detection of different small organic contaminants (Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 2018, 106, 117; Biosensors, 2020, 10, 191 ).
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
It is a quite complex review, as preparation methods of imprinted thin-layer are various and vwery different each other. The general structure of the review is good and it covers quite well the literature, focusing on some relevant examples. Anyway, for each of the approaches (and sub-approaches) tables reporting literaure (not only the examples in the text) will be very useful. For more clarity, I would like to suggest to divide each of the sections in sub-sections, expecially for section 2, which covers a really wide field. About section 2, it will more clear to the reader if the grafting approach will be divided in "grafting from" (iniferter, RAFT, etc.) and "grafting on" (polymerization in thin layer solution), eventually adding some more examples for the several types of controlled radical polymerization
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors reviewed on methods to fabricate various molecular imprinting (MI) sensors. The manuscript will be beneficial to the researchers in the field. I believe the manuscript is suitable for publication in this journal after minor revision.
Addition of more Figure and Table will improve the readability of the manuscript since most of the part was written without them. For instance, figures that summarizes chemical structure of the reported compound, will make readers to easily imagine the chemical properties of the compounds and Tables that summarize materials used as MIPs and method of fabrication, and template compound will provide a bird's-eye view of the author's to the readers. For section 3 "3. Molecular Imprinting by Electropolymerization", types of electrodes and scan rate are often mentioned and it is more easier for readers to summarize the information in a Table rather than writing in the text.
The review is usually a cooperative work and I understand the ways to write manuscript differ among authors. Yet the form should be consistent in the manuscript. Following is minor errors that I noticed when I was reading the manuscript.
In line 95,123 'being', and in line 1067, n of 'rations' are not deleted.
The format of the titles are in consistent. A blank line is added after the title for line 565, 747, 925, while the blank line is absent for line 564. The indentation of each title is not inconsistent as well. Compare lines 311, 564,745, 924.
In line 32 the word "precision" should be "precise".
In line 34 the I think the word "suffer" is not necessary in this sentence or reorganization of the sentence is needed.
In line 167, authors write "The results obtained upon assessment of atrazine solutions in toluene were reproducible for the both types of films. However, the film prepared with auto-assembled MIP nanoparticles was more sensitive, tracking atrazine down to 1.7 ppm." What was the sensitivity of the when toluene is used in this work?
In line 177, it is written "N-dansyl-l-phenylalanine" but N should be italic and l should be uppercase letter.
In line 223, it is written "N-methacryloyl-(L)-phenylalanine" and in line 415 "N, N-methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA)" in line 516 "N-(4-aminophenylsulfonyl)", in line 1083 "N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP)" but N should be italic and L should be uppercase letter without parenthes.
In line "The MIP-SPR chip was able to detect the OTA with high specificity (around 4.24 higher than that of the NIP), while the detection limit was close to 1 ng/ml and the 234 response time was about 8 minutes." What is the unit or physical property that measure the specificity?
In line 381, "L-arginine", but L should be uppercase letter.
In line 384, it is written as follows. "using solutions with different concentration (0.1x10^-9 to 10x10^-6 mol/L)" The decimal is inconsistent and it could be 10^-10 to 10^-5 mol/L.
In line 393, it is written as follows. "m-phenylenediamine" m should be italic.
In line 437 and 438, the symbol of cross "×" is not consistent in the all symbols should be checked.
In line 532 it is written as follows. "The proposal of Zheng and co-workers [93], for the fabrication of an electrochemical MIP-based sensor for detection of 4-nonyphenol (4-NP) in milk samples, implied two steps." The use of word "imply" here is strange. Paraphrasing the sentence makes the sentence more easy to understand. For instance, "Zheng and co-workers [93], proposed two-step fabrication process of an electrochemical MIP-based sensor for detection of 4-nonyphenol (4-NP) in milk samples."
The texts in Figure 5 is not readable. Text with twice larger font is preferable for other Figures as well.
In line 663, author writes as follows. " 0.0027 μM for 3-NT and 0.0138 μM for 8-OHdG." Why not 2.7 nM and 13.8 nM but in μM scale?
In line 685, 689 authors write "Pseudomonas Aeruginosa" and 690 "Escherichia coli" These are names of bacteria and should be written with italic.
In line 711, authors write "μgmL^-1" but I think it shoud be μgï½¥mL^-1.
In line 717, authors write "1x10-9M – 2x10-7M." but a space is needed between the number and the unit.
In line 784, the indentation of Figure caption of Fig 6 is strange.
In line 881, superscript is not active and the unit mol/L]and M are in consistently used in the manuscript. Use one of them.
In line 895 Ethanol should be ethanol.
In line 898 50mV/s should be 50 mV/s.
In line 1080 font of CIT (Citrinin) is different.
In line 1087 1.7ng g^−1, should be 1.7 ng g^−1.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am not sure but I still feel the figures are too obscure. I think this revision has clarified all my concerns.
