Exploring the Potential of Microextraction in the Survey of Food Fruits and Vegetable Safety
, Laura García-Cansino 2, María Ángeles García 2,3, María Luisa Marina 2,3, José S. Câmara 1,4 and Jorge A. M. Pereira 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments to the authors
The evaluated manuscript corresponds to the Aims and Scope of the Applied Sciences and can be published after minor revision
The reviewer’s remarks are highlighted in yellow in the file
The authors have taken great pains to compile and present this large volume of information.
The overview presented is too detailed.
In general, the same comments and descriptions are repeated, focusing on the benefits and dangers of the groups of compounds commented on - pesticides (different types), antibiotics, preservatives.
This greatly lengthens and complicates the text of the article. The reviewer has pointed out a few places where passages could be shortened, but there are many more:
line 394-398 or line 412.
In addition, the title of the article talks about the potential of the microextraction technique in fruit/vegetable safety research, and this technique only begins to be commented on on page 9 of the manuscript.
The reader may have forgotten about this technique while reading the description of hazardous compounds....
This remark also applies to the Introduction, where this technique is only vaguely mentioned at the end.
Thus, it seems that the title is not appropriate for this manuscript.
Therefore, I recommend to shorten/revise the description of the groups of hazardous compounds (section 1.1) and also section 1.2
I believe that this would greatly improve the quality of the manuscript.
Conclusion:
The conclusions are well written
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer’s 1 comments:
«Comments to the authors
The evaluated manuscript corresponds to the Aims and Scope of the Applied Sciences and can be published after minor revision.
The reviewer’s remarks are highlighted in yellow in the file
The authors have taken great pains to compile and present this large volume of information.
The overview presented is too detailed.
In general, the same comments and descriptions are repeated, focusing on the benefits and dangers of the groups of compounds commented on - pesticides (different types), antibiotics, preservatives.
This greatly lengthens and complicates the text of the article. The reviewer has pointed out a few places where passages could be shortened, but there are many more:
line 394-398 or line 412.
In addition, the title of the article talks about the potential of the microextraction technique in fruit/vegetable safety research, and this technique only begins to be commented on page 9 of the manuscript.
The reader may have forgotten about this technique while reading the description of hazardous compounds....
This remark also applies to the Introduction, where this technique is only vaguely mentioned at the end.
Thus, it seems that the title is not appropriate for this manuscript.
Therefore, I recommend to shorten/revise the description of the groups of hazardous compounds (section 1.1) and also section 1.2
I believe that this would greatly improve the quality of the manuscript.
Conclusion: The conclusions are well written»
Authors answer: The authors thank the reviewer’s comments. The MS was deeply revised according to the observations made by the reviewers. Sections 1.1 and 1.2, in particular, were considerably shortened, as well as the section on conventional microextraction techniques. Figures 1 and 2 were also improved.
Reviewer 2 Report
This review discussed the chemicals contaminating fruits and vegetables and the methods for their extraction and detection. Comments are below:
1- Figure 1 is of low resolution and the details for the chemical structures are non-readable. Please improve.
2- Lines 637 and 638, please merge.
3- Please add graphs for the design and principle of the best methods of microextractions for more elaborations
4- Please mention the detection limit for each chemical and each detection and extraction method.
Few mistakes.
Author Response
Reviewer’s comments:
«This review discussed the chemicals contaminating fruits and vegetables and the methods for their extraction and detection. Comments are below:
- Figure 1 is of low resolution and the details for the chemical structures are non-readable. Please improve.
Authors' answer: The authors thank the reviewer’s comments. Figure 1 was improved but the full details for the chemical structures continue to be of limited readability, otherwise, the figure would have to be very large. Furthermore, the main interest is the molecules' backbone, which are clearer in the revised figure.
Lines 637 and 638, please merge.
Authors' answer: Lines 637 and 638 were merged.
Please add graphs for the design and principle of the best methods of microextractions for more elaborations
Authors' answer: Despite we agree with the reviewer that having graphs for the best methods of microextractions would be interesting for a tutorial-style revision, this is very unpractical because such charts and best experimental conditions are primarily dependent on the combination of sample-target analytes, so any guidelines proposed would be either too generic or too specific.
4- Please mention the detection limit for each chemical and each detection and extraction method.»
Authors' answer: The information requested is already available in Tables 1 and 2.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors carried out a literature review study entitled Exploring the potential of microextraction in the survey of food fruits and vegetable safety"
In general, the manuscript appears to be interesting, however, authors should carry out revisions throughout the manuscript.
The abstract does not represent well the content of the manuscript, I recommend that the authors carry out a major revision in this section.
The introduction needs to be improved, the authors do not delve into the state of the art in this section, for me, it is poor and needs to be adjusted.
There are very short sections throughout the work, I ask the authors if could they not be removed or summarized in tables, figures, etc...?
The tables are with a lot of unnecessary information, I believe that the authors should review and put the information that really shows the scientific advances of the citations in some cases it looks like an article summary was inserted.
Figures are key to better interpreting the results of other authors, in this manuscript there are only two figures, I believe that this can be improved and the authors can elaborate new figures from other data, which will help future readers.
Why do authors write huge paragraphs? a good paragraph should be no more than 6 lines.
Conclusion.
Authors should focus on the advances that this work brings to the literature, I believe that this conclusion does not reflect well the content addressed.
Author Response
Reviewer’s comments:
«The authors carried out a literature review study entitled Exploring the potential of microextraction in the survey of food fruits and vegetable safety"
In general, the manuscript appears to be interesting, however, authors should carry out revisions throughout the manuscript.
The abstract does not represent well the content of the manuscript, I recommend that the authors carry out a major revision in this section.
Authors' answer: The authors thank the reviewer’s comments. The MS was deeply revised according to the observations made by the reviewers.
The introduction needs to be improved, the authors do not delve into the state of the art in this section, for me, it is poor and needs to be adjusted.
Author's answer: As referred to, the MS was deeply revised.
There are very short sections throughout the work, I ask the authors if could they not be removed or summarized in tables, figures, etc...?
Author's answer: The shorter sections were revised and integrated into larger sections.
The tables are with a lot of unnecessary information, I believe that the authors should review and put the information that really shows the scientific advances of the citations in some cases it looks like an article summary was inserted.
Author's answer: The tables provide a brief description of the extraction conditions used for the recovery of the target analytes (contaminants) in different food matrixes and the LODs obtained. This allows readers to compare the conditions and LODs between conventional and microextraction techniques. Nevertheless, the text in the Tables was revised to be more focused and consistent.
Figures are key to better interpreting the results of other authors, in this manuscript there are only two figures, I believe that this can be improved and the authors can elaborate new figures from other data, which will help future readers.
Author's answer: In our opinion, this MS contains the necessary figures to contextualize the main points that are reviewed and discussed: the major types of food contaminants and additives (Figure 1) and the overview of the generic analytical layout used to analyse those analytes (Figure 2). Additional figures would make the MS longer and necessarily biased to one or another topic that one reviewer would agree with and another would not. Moreover, Table 1 and 2 contain very relevant information and are eventually more important than the figures.
Why do authors write huge paragraphs? a good paragraph should be no more than 6 lines.
Author's answer: A few sections were revised and shortened to avoid this feature.
Conclusion.
Authors should focus on the advances that this work brings to the literature, I believe that this conclusion does not reflect well the content addressed.»
Author's answer: We think this review shows that the use of microextraction over conventional extraction approaches is more advantageous for surveying the presence of contaminants and additives in fruits and vegetables. This comparison is based on recent examples of applications reported in the literature that are discussed in Tables 1 and 2. In our view, the conclusions reflect the major points of that comparison, particularly when highlighting the greener potential of microextraction techniques, “being more environmentally friendly due to simpler and faster protocols, reduced amounts of solvents and samples, and consequently wastes produced during analysis while conserving a high potential for automation”.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors carried out the requested revisions, I recommend the publication of the manuscript.
