Gas Sensor Based on ZnO Nanostructured Film for the Detection of Ethanol Vapor

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work reports the ethanol sensing properties of ZnO (La), where the ZnO(La) target was synthesized by the solid-state reaction method and 8 a nanostructured thin film was deposited by the RF (radio frequency) magnetron sputtering method 9 on Multi-Sensor-Platform. The material and thin film characterization is studied in detailed way. Besides the prepared sensor showed good sensitivity and selectivity towards ethanol vapours in comparison to other analytes. However, the reviewer thinks some changes will be necessary before the paper goes to the next step.

 The authors should add some more details about the importance of sensing of ethanol vapours,

In the lines 46… etc the authors focused only on ZnO sensing applications. Besides ZnO, recently organic semiconductors are also gaining attention in sensing applications. Therefore, the authors should compare the properties of ZnO with organic materials to show the advantages/disadvantages of ZnO over according materials and add cite some relevant papers (Organic Electronics 15 (2014) 2277–2284, Chemosensors 9 (2), 30 etc) to broaden the scope of the paper.

The scale bar of the SEM images and AFM images can be improved to make it visible.

As in Fig. 14 the authors showed that the ZnO sensor is slightly sensitive towards water vapours also. Therefore the author should investigate the effect of water vapours on the ethanol sensing performance also.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all, thank you very much for the scientifically weighty considerations and remarks. Please see the attached microsoft word file.

Best regards,

Authors of the paper entitled " Gas sensor based on ZnO nanostructured film for the detection of ethanol vapor ".

 Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript presented the ethanol sensing performance of ZnO-based sensors fabricated through magnetron sputtering. The sensing performance looks good. However, the novelty of this manuscript is not sufficient for publication in Chemosensors due to several issues.

1. The reasons for using La as the mixture element to ZnO need to be discussed comprehensively. What is the function of La?

2. The synthesis and fabrication method is not that facile compared with other cited ethanol MOS sensors.

3. Pd is also known as a sensitive material to hydrogen. The author needs to discuss more on the selection of this dopant.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all, thank you very much for the scientifically weighty considerations and remarks. Please see the attached microsoft word file.

Best regards,

Authors of the paper entitled " Gas sensor based on ZnO nanostructured film for the detection of ethanol vapor ".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Reviewer report:

1. This is a work that falls within the scope of chemosensors.

2. The work is - in general terms - well written and rather easy to follow.

3. Some linguistic polishing is suggested.

4. The experimental work is - to my opinion - were contucted and well presented.

5. The number of figures is way to big. Several could be transferred as supplementary material.

6. A fair comparison to previous methods is also included by the authors. 

7. The characterization of the material is satisfactory. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all, thank you very much for the scientifically weighty considerations and remarks. Please see the attached microsoft word file.

Best regards,

Authors of the paper entitled " Gas sensor based on ZnO nanostructured film for the detection of ethanol vapor ".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No more comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors responded comprehensively to each point in the review reports.