Hydrothermal Synthesis of Nitrogen, Boron Co-Doped Graphene with Enhanced Electro-Catalytic Activity for Cymoxanil Detection
, Florina Pogăcean 1, Maria Coros 1,*, Lidia Magerusan 1, Raluca-Ioana Stefan-van Staden 2,3 and Stela Pruneanu 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript „Hydrothermal synthesis of nitrogen, boron co-doped graphene with enhanced electro-catalytic activity for cymoxanil detection” describes an experimental study to evaluate the potential and feasibility of glassy carbon electrodes modified with N,B-co-doped graphene for the detection of a commercially used fungizide (cymoxanil) by LSV.
There are a few concerns and remarks regarding the manuscript:
The paper concisely reports the experimental procedures applied, the results of the measurements, the data processing procedures. It draws traceable conclusions from the measurements and a verification experiment making use of a commercial formulation. There are very few shortcomings throughout the manuscript.
From line 178 (Legend of Fig.4), cymoxanil is eventually abbreviated by “CYM”, but this abbreviation was not introduced before. I suggest to define the abbreviation in line 66, where also the systematic chemical name of cymoxanil is given.
Line: 118-123: The XRD pattern (Fig. 2a) has been fitted using Gaussian profiles. Furthermore, a percentage of three- and six-layer graphene is given. The fitting of laboratory X-ray data with gaussians rather than Pearson-VII or Pseudo-Voigt profiles has to be regarded as an error and has to be corrected. Despite this is a severe experimental error, I regard this as a minor error in the context of the manuscript as no further conclusion is drawn from the result.
Furthermore, a reference for the technique applied to estimate the percentages of the differently layered graphenes is missing and should be added.
Line 220-242: The test experiment with a commercial product nicely describes the robustness and reliability of the presented technique. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the robustness will stand in more field-like environments, as they are addressed in the Introduction (line 66-75). This should be mentioned briefly in the conclusions or an outlook section.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
your manuscript is interesting, yet here are some comments
-for the sample I would propose the expression: N,B-co-doped graphene
-enhance the "introduction" part, some theory on doping and on electrodes applications on chemical compounds (especially pesticides) would be helpful for the readers.
-never use a comma (,) before the "and" when for simple parathesis of similar things. Correct throughout the text
-provide some more information on instrumental techniques and methods applied (models, auxiliary parts, conditions, parameters set)
-its is mL, correct where needed. It is 180 °C, correct where needed.
-on SEM images I would prefere a continued line for scale instead of dots, it is safer for reading
-Fig. 3: is it safe to make comments for N1s peak?
--Fig. 5: Ip dots shape an "S"-type curve or it's preferable not to say? The linear eqaution for Ep refers in the region pH=2-7 only I guess. Comment
-CYM stand for what? Avoid unnecessary/unfamiliar abbreviations because is tiring for the readers.
You may also enrich the conclusion part of the manuscript.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The authors described a method for cymoxanil determination by linear
sweep voltammetry (LSV) and amperometry using a glassy carbon electrode modified with nitrogen, boron co-doped graphene, synthesized by hydrothermal method. This work could be of interest to the readers of Sensors. I recommend its publication after the following revision.
- For XPS, what is the peak between 700-800 eV?
- For figure 4, please explain the current which is larger than 0. What does this current come from?
- Are the sensors stable enough for reproducing the data?
- could the authors compare the present sensor with the literatures?
Author Response
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