Decoration of Reduced Graphene Oxide with Magnesium Oxide during Reflux Reaction and Assessment of Its Antioxidant Properties

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The characterization devices type should be mension in the experimental  section.

I suggest the authors read and cite this paper which very relevant to this work, where a simple synthesis and characterization of MgO decorated graphene is illustrated.

Seham K.Abdel Aal, et al  simple synthesis of graphene nanocomposite MgO-rGO , Applied Physics A mat science and processing  2018,  124, p 365

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 

Please see the attachment.

 

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript offers a concise yet compelling report on the decoration of reduced graphene oxide with magnesium oxide during reflux reaction. The emphasis of the study falls on the antioxidant properties of the proposed material. The discussion provided is quite adequate for the present ambitious purpose. The nice detailed and at the same time comparative context of the preparation scheme//synthesis procedure(s) and subsequent characterization efforts throughout the study contributes to reliable scrutinization and prompting good understanding of reliable and repeatable realization of such graphene-based material as well as paving the way to its future applications with potentially high practical impact.

From practical point of view, the reported results thus bring new knowledge and certainly represent an original contribution in the present context.

The authors chose an adequate structure of the manuscript – an excellent point of departure for such a study. Finally, the authors provided a balanced realistic and nicely illustrated presentation of their results and corresponding analysis that is of much scientific and practical interest and adds new knowledge to the field.

In my opinion, the fine detailing in the present work, the insightful and balanced discussion of the results, as well as the excellent, intuitively perceived figures, permit wide circle of readers to utilize the manuscript as a guidance for their potential future work in the same or in a similar research field. Consequently, this manuscript presents an efficient and beneficial basis for promoting and solving next step challenges in this field.

The manuscript also benefits from a clear motivation, and it is an easy and informative read.

The present manuscript is a significant contribution, this work once published would be quite useful as well as instructive and suggestive in terms of further studies and to a wider readership.

There are some minor issues with this already excellent manuscript that will need to be addressed before becoming suitable for publication, i.e., it can be considered for publication after a minor revision:

1: Title is not optimal. The phrase “…and Evaluation of Its Antioxidant Properties…” is not necessary. At the best, the authors could say “ … with remarkable antioxidant properties”. In addition, it is grammatically incorrect (including in titles) to begin every word in a sentence or a phrase with capital letters (although some journals accept such a practice).

2: In the introduction, the authors partly miss that there is a very wide range of theoretical/simulation approaches/tools to study any interaction of variety of graphene and other 2D graphene-like materials with oxygen/oxidation and reduction reactions as well as decoration. Examples in which theoretical works help understanding such properties and guide experimental work include Applied Surface Science 548 (2021) 149275, Carbon 81 (2015) 620-628; Such works should be referred to.

3: The authors should elaborate and be more specific when they comment on the low temperature synthesis of GO and its derivatives. They should discuss the relationship to the thermal stability of decorated with MgO material. Are there any direct limitations of thermal stability?

4: It would be helpful and valuable to the general readership if bonding (especially in terms the MgO-bonding condition(s) to graphene) is commented in more quantitative details and if it is placed in a larger context of graphene-like materials decoration with variety of species.

5: Spell-check and stylistic revision of the paper are still necessary. Some, long sentences, misspellings, etc., still are noticeable throughout the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2

C1: Title is not optimal. The phrase “…and Evaluation of Its Antioxidant Properties…” is not necessary. At the best, the authors could say “ … with remarkable antioxidant properties”. In addition, it is grammatically incorrect (including in titles) to begin every word in a sentence or a phrase with capital letters (although some journals accept such a practice).

R1: the title was rectified: “Decoration of reduced graphene oxide with magnesium oxide during Reflux Reaction and assessment of its antioxidant properties”

 

C2: In the introduction, the authors partly miss that there is a very wide range of theoretical/simulation approaches/tools to study any interaction of variety of graphene and other 2D graphene-like materials with oxygen/oxidation and reduction reactions as well as decoration. Examples in which theoretical works help understanding such properties and guide experimental work include Applied Surface Science 548 (2021) 149275, Carbon 81 (2015) 620-628; Such works should be referred to.

R2: Thanks for your important suggestion, a paragraph contains examples about theoretical works was included (107-121 lines).

 

C3: The authors should elaborate and be more specific when they comment on the low temperature synthesis of GO and its derivatives. They should discuss the relationship to the thermal stability of decorated with MgO material. Are there any direct limitations of thermal stability?

R3: Yes, GO may begin to decompose at ~ 70°C, more specifications were included in the manuscript (131-139 pages).

 

C4: It would be helpful and valuable to the general readership if bonding (especially in terms the MgO-bonding condition(s) to graphene) is commented in more quantitative details and if it is placed in a larger context of graphene-like materials decoration with variety of species.

 

R4: A paragraph was included talking about MgO bonding (114-121 pages) qualitatively. Including Quantitative parameters imply talking about more details out of the subject of this work. Although, we cite two examples about MgO bonding research works.

 

C5: Spell-check and stylistic revision of the paper are still necessary. Some, long sentences, misspellings, etc., still are noticeable throughout the text.

 

R5: A spell-check and deep stylistic revision were done by Dr. Giorgio Speranza (Senior researcher).

 

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript entitled “Decoration of Reduced Graphene Oxide with Magnesium Oxide during Reflux Reaction and Evaluation of Its Antioxidant Properties” describes the reduction and decoration of graphene oxide with magnesium oxide and evaluates its antioxidant properties. In general, the manuscript is well prepared. Still, I have some concerns.

The authors claim that the present work aims to study the ROS scavenging properties of MgO-rGO nanocomposite, which has never been investigated before. Still, the motivation for this investigation is not clear. Therefore, the authors should explain better the novelty and motivation of this study.

There are too many figures related to XRD and XPS. Some of them should be transferred to Supplementary material.

The antioxidant activity of nanocomposite should be thoroughly discussed regarding the potential application.

The conclusion should be completely rewritten and point out the topic discussed earlier. Written as it is now, it looks just like an abstract.

The literature is up-to-date.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

C1: The authors claim that the present work aims to study the ROS scavenging properties of MgO-rGO nanocomposite, which has never been investigated before. Still, the motivation for this investigation is not clear. Therefore, the authors should explain better the novelty and motivation of this study.

 

 

R1: In literature several works on synthesis and characterization of MgO-rGO nanocomposite were carried out. Although there is a total absence of ROS scavenging properties studies of MgO-rGO except the study of ^* R.M. Fathy et al. where the antioxidant activity of GO/MgO (magnesium oxide decorated graphene oxide) was assessed showing an excellent result of 56.71 % (500µg/mL). Our H₂O₂ tests show a value of 58.36±5.29 % (400µg/mL) for MgO-rGO 1:4.

 

^* Fathy, R.M. and Mahfouz, A.Y. (2021) 'Eco-friendly graphene oxide-based magnesium oxide nanocomposite synthesis using fungal fermented by-products and gamma rays for outstanding antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anticancer activities', Journal of Nanostructure in Chemistry, 11(2), 301

 

 

 

C2: There are too many figures related to XRD and XPS. Some of them should be transferred to Supplementary material.

 

R2: the duplicated figures were suppressed.

 

 

 

C3: The antioxidant activity of nanocomposite should be thoroughly discussed regarding the potential application.

 

R3: Since this work focused on synthesis and studying the antioxidant properties of MgO-rGO only two examples about biomedical properties (references 7 and 8) were cited. In vivo antioxidant assessment of MgO-rGO compound will be carried out in the near future and more details will be presented about biomedical applications, knowing that this later assessment is more important than in vitro one. Excellent reactivity in presence of living cell allows possible applications.

 

 

 

C4: The conclusion should be completely rewritten and point out the topic discussed earlier. Written as it is now, it looks just like an abstract.

 

 

R4: the conclusion was improved.

 

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Although the authors made an effort to address my comments, I feel like there is a misunderstanding. I find it necessary to implement the novelty explanation within the paper, not in the responses to the reviewer. The authors missed doing that.

Also, the conclusion is improved but should not start with a sentence like “The aim of this work is the synthesis and structural characterization of MgO–rGO, which was not explored by other authors before.” This sentence fits better for novelty addressing.

I feel like the trouble with this paper is language and semantics, not the scientific part.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

 

We thank the reviewer for the important suggestions aimed at helping us to improve the quality of our manuscript. Corrections to the manuscript are indicated in blue color

C1 : Although the authors made an effort to address my comments, I feel like there is a misunderstanding. I find it necessary to implement the novelty explanation within the paper, not in the responses to the reviewer. The authors missed doing that.

 

R1: We thank the reviewer for the helpful suggestion. Now the novelty explanation was included in the manuscript (309-317 lines).

 

C2: Also, the conclusion is improved but should not start with a sentence like “The aim of this work is the synthesis and structural characterization of MgO–rGO, which was not explored by other authors before.” This sentence fits better for novelty addressing.

I feel like the trouble with this paper is language and semantics, not the scientific part.

 

R2: We thank again the reviewer for the important suggestion. As required by the reviewer, the conclusion was improved. We hope that now the conclusions are in an acceptable form.

 

Thanks

 

Our Best Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf