Hybrid Dielectric Barrier Discharge Reactor: Characterization for Ozone Production
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is an interesting manuscript describing a novel DBD concept specifically optimized for ozone production. The manuscript is well written, the topic is put in context in the introduction through an ample bibliography, the experimental results appear to be sound and the conclusions correctly summarize the main findings. For these reasons, I propose acceptance after a minor revision according to the points listed below:
1) The description of the simplified power measurement technique, given in the last 5-6 lines of the introduction, should be moved to the Materials and Methods section.
2) Line 146: "sample duration" should be replaced by "sampling time".
3) It is not clear how the "apparent power" in fig.5 is obtained. Please clarify this point. Also, section 3.3 is somehow confusing, probably also for the lack of definition of what "apparent power" is. I invite the authors to reconsider it and try to rewrite it in a more clear way.
4) The dependence on the Peltier current, shown in fig.8, is very interesting. Do the authors have an idea of the electrode temperatures corresponding to the different Peltier currents? Just giving some hint in the text would be useful.
The English language seems fine to me, apart for a few minor glitches.
Author Response
All corrections are carefully considered. The response is described in magenta in the attached review.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is well organized and well written.
One minor comment / suggestion - at the end of the Section 1, add a sentence outlining the remaining sections of the paper. Such as "Section 2 xxx, Section 3 xxx, Section 4 xxx".
Author Response
see the cover latter with response written in magenta.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript under review "Hybrid Dielectric Barrier Discharge Reactor: Characterization for 4Ozone Production" by Korzec et al. presents an extensive study on a novel hybrid dielectric barrier discharge that operates as surface- and volume-DBD. The results presented are novel and extensive. The scientific approach is sound and solid, and the conclusions drawn are backed by the experimental results and theory. This paper is recommended to be published; however, the manuscript requires some edits before publication. Thorough proof-reading and language edits are highly recommended. Furthermore, some more technical aspects need to be addressed, listed in detail below:
Page 2, line 62: do the authors mean a "packed bed reactor"? The reviewer believes that the phrase "packed bed reactor" is more commonly used.
Page 3, line 103: "The setting..." this sentence is missing (a) word(s)
Materials & Methods: it would be helpful to include a plot of the voltage, or at least a sketch of it. It is not clear to the reviewer how the voltage looks like. Is it a sine wave with f = 20 - 40 kHz that can be modulated with the PWM? Is it then becoming a decaying sine wave, or is the PWM just providing a duty cycle in the classic sense that the sine wave is on for x amount of time and off for 1-x amount of time? The PWM provides a pulse frequency, does that correlate 1:1 to the duty cycle or is the duty cycle set separately? A more detailed description and a figure would be helpful to clarify. Furthermore, the authors decided to list the voltage that is applied to the driver - this information is not very useful for the plasma community. It would be more useful to provide the voltage applied to the electrodes.
Figure 6b) presents the MDIR signal in blue, which looks exactly the same as the ozone concentrations in other figures. While not a major issue, the reviewer recommends to choose a different color / appearance for MDIR to have an easier distinction between ozone concentrations and MDIR signal. Aligning the colors in figure 6a), 8a), and following figures to show the same colors for each voltage presented would make it easier for the reader as well.
Another minor issue with figure 8: the duty cycle axis goes up to 120, which does not make any sense. The reviewer understands that the authors wanted to have more space to put the voltages next to the lines. Maybe letting it end at 119 (so 120 is not depicted) would be an option to consider.
Page 16, line 544 - 548: this paragraph would benefit from references.
Page 20, equation 25: this reaction does not involve humidity and should be moved to the syn. air section.
Page 21, line 654: there are a lot of acronyms being used throughout the manuscript and some of them are not very common (or the reviewer is not familiar with them). It would be helpful to spell some of the acronyms out again when they appear in a heading, as here CDA as an example, and maybe even in figure captions to make it easier for the reader.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Extensive English-editing and proof-reading is recommended.
Author Response
All corrections are carefully considered. The response is described in magenta in the attached review.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis manuscript describes a novel DBD setup, characterized by flow control and temperature control obtained thanks to a Peltier cooling element, with a set of measurements to characterize, especially in regard to the aim of maximizing ozone production.
The paper is interesting, and deserves publication on Plasma, after a minor revision according to the points listed below:
1) The paper does not fully respect the structure declared through the division into "Material and methods" and "Results and discussion". In particular, I suggest that the measurements shown in fig.3, and the related discussion, should be moved to the "Results and discussion" section.
2) In the title of section 2.4, a "DBD Driver" is mentioned, but nothing is actually said about it. I assume that this is the circuit driving the primary of the transformer. However, This should be fully described, and possibly some information about how the circuit is built should be given. Furthermore, it should be clearly stated, possibly with the help of a figure, how the waveform is shaped in the case of "PWM mode". Indeed, I don't understand if this is a sinusoidal curve modulated with a rectangular wave with given duty cycle (but in this case "PWM" is not appropriate), or if it is some other kind of waveform.
3) In fig.3 a power measurement is shown. The authors should detail how this power is measured. It would be useful to introduce a figure showing the voltage and current waveforms.
4) In section 2.5 the measurement range of the ozone detector is given in g/Nm^3. It would be useful to the reader to have also the same values in ppm, since this unit is used in the following.
5) The authors claim, for the case without Peltier cooling, an excellent efficiency of O3 production (page 11). Since the influence of Peltier cooling on O3 concentration appears to be rather modest, the question arises if adding Peltier cooling, with the associated power consumption, actually increases or decreases the efficiency. The authors should discuss this issue.
6) On page 18, after eq.19, there is a missing reference.
7) How are the sub-spectra obtained in 17-18? Please explain the data analysis technique in the "Materials and methods" section.
8) An appropriate comment to fig.19 should be inserted, emphasizing the similarities observed in the trends. Can this figure be considered as an absolute calibration for the FTIR spectra, as far as O3 is concerned?
9) The statement of lines 729-731 is not obvious to me, given the results in figs.19-20. It seems to me that the trends found with the two measurement techniques are similar, apart may be from the 100% duty cycle, 2 slm point in fig.20 (but, what is the experimental uncertainty?). Please clarify.
10) In section 2.1, a detailed description of the gas composition is given for oxygen and for synthetic air, but not for CDA. This information should be given here.
The quality of the English language should be improved. I suggest a proof-reading by a native English speaker.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear editor, dear authors.
The manuscript “The control of chemistry in a dielectric barrier discharge by cooling and power pulse the modulation” describes the enhanced ozone production of their plasma source by cooling an electrode and through a modulation of the power. The authors also vary the gas feed of the source. They used pure, molecular oxygen, compressed dried air, and synthetic air. However, the manuscript is extensively long (36 pages) and urgently needs to be shorten. In parts, the English is hard to understand and the authors were not able to present their conclusions linguistically in a way that I could follow their argumentation. Contrary, the paper offers an interesting topic and I recommend reconsidering a publication of the manuscript after major revisions.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
English very difficult to understand/incomprehensible
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors developed a novel DBD device equipped with a structured high-voltage (HV) electrode and alumina dielectric barrier cooled by Peltier module. In order to apply the device for medical, biological, and agricultural uses, the authors investigated the plasma chemistry in the DBD device.
The title and introduction of this study present a captivating premise, drawing readers in with intriguing possibilities. However, while the authors have undeniably put forth a significant amount of effort, the overall results were quite disappointing. The primary cause of this disappointment lies in the fact that the study failed to provide the expected quantitative data on the variety of chemicals produced under different experimental conditions, despite the promising title suggesting otherwise. Instead, the only quantitative figure presented was the concentration of ozone. As a consequence, the paper falls short of being considered high-quality research with far-reaching implications.
The chemistries explored in the paper did not offer any groundbreaking or novel insights, dampening the potential impact of the study. Although it is acknowledged that FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) may not typically be employed for precise chemical calculations, recent advances have enabled researchers to correlate peak intensities with concentrations through precise control and internal standard calibration. It is essential that such efforts be undertaken and incorporated into the study before its publication to elevate its scientific rigor and overall significance.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
same as the above
