Advance Oxidation Process (AOP) of Bisphenol A Using a Novel Surface-Functionalised Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) Fibre Catalyst
, George Chi Tangyie 1 and Katherine Huddersman 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Greetings, Editor thank you for providing me with the opportunity to review the article. I reviewed the article with title Advance Oxidation Process(AOP) of Bisphenol A using a novel surface functionalized Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibre catalyst. The article topic is intriguing and promising in the area. Overall, the article structure and content are suitable for the WATER journal. I am pleased to send you major level comments, there are some serious flaws which need to be corrected before publication. Please consider these suggestions as listed below.
- The title seems good, please see word functionalized and revised it. but the abstract seems to be fine. Please add one more introductory line of your objective in beginning of abstract.
- Research gap should be delivered on more clear way with directed necessity for the future research work.
- Introduction section must be written on more quality way, i.e., more up-to-date references addressed. Please target the specific gap such as 2015-2021 etc.
- The novelty of the work must be clearly addressed and discussed, compare previous research with existing research findings and highlight novelty.
- What is the main challenge? Why author choose this material? Please highlight in the introduction part.
- Page 2 Line 54. Please cite this reference (Umar, K.; Yaqoob, A.; Ibrahim, M.; Parveen, T.; Safian, M. Environmental applications of smart polymer composites. Smart Polym. Nanocompos. Biomed. Environ. Appl.2020, 15, 295–320) at the end of this sentence….hydrodynamic proper ties of the mesh.
- What mean metal oxo species?
- Page 1 Line 37 need a reference. Please consider these at end of this sentence……and high concentration of refractory organic matter.…(i) Graphene oxide–ZnO nanocomposite: an efficient visible light photocatalyst for degradation of rhodamine B (ii) Advances and challenges in developing efficient graphene oxide-based ZnO photocatalysts for dye photo-oxidation.
- The main objective of the work must be written on the more clear and more concise way at the end of introduction section.
- Please check the abbreviations of words throughout the article. All should be consistent.
- Please include all chemical/instrumentation brand name and other important specification.
- Please provide space between number and units such as 250mL. Please revise your paper accordingly since some issue occurs on several spots in the paper.
- Please add chemical reagents section and stated all chemical with brand specifications.
- Regarding the replications, authors confirmed that replications of experiment were carried out. However, these results are not shown in the manuscript, how many replicated were carried out by experiment? Results seem to be related to a unique experiment. Please, clarify whether the results of this document are from a single experiment or from an average resulting from replications. If replicated were carried out, the use of average data is required as well as the standard deviation in the results and figures shown throughout the manuscript. In case of showing only one replicate explain why only one is shown and include the standard deviations.
- Please add a comparative profile section to compare your results and prove how it better than previous.
- Section 4 should be renamed by Conclusion and Future perspectives. Conclusion section is missing some perspective related to the future research work, quantify main research findings, highlight relevance of the work with respect to the field aspect.
- To avoid grammar and linguistic mistakes, Major level English language should be thoroughly checked. Please revise your paper accordingly since several language issue occurs on several spots in the paper.
- Reference formatting need carefully revision. All must be consistent in one formate. Please follow the journal guidelines.
Date: 27/01/2022
Author Response
See attached file, please.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The aim of this work was to evaluate the degradation of bisphenol A using novel heterogeneous oxidation catalyst, a surface functionalized polyacrylonitrile mesh with hydrazine and hydroxylamine salts. This surface functionalized PAN was exposed to iron salt solution to promote the binding of Fe(III) thus forming active catalytic site. The experiments were set up in two laboratory batch reactors at different temperatures and pH. The degradation of BPA was detected by measuring its absorbance using RP-HPLC at 280 nm wavelength.
Due to shortness of the Article, I suggest to note that it is a Communication.
Please edit Affiliations to follow the rules of the journal.
I would like to see the schematic/figure of how this novel surface can be presented by (PAN mesh-hydrazine/NH2OH-Fe(III)-BPA active sites).
Line 26: follow the mdpi citation style.
Line 30: add reference.
Line 36-37: what do you mean? Affect what/who?
Line 39: ‘is bound’
Line 43: define HY
Line 71: either millimole or mmol of Fe(III)
Line 73: 100 mm
Line 80: 5 μm particle size?
Line 81: provide reference for used wavelength.
Line 84-93: a scheme would be very useful
Line 96: please rephase the sentence, sound weird.
Line 121-122: please speculate what might be these oxidation products based on literature. Please try to explain why is this increase in pH happening?
Line 124: ‘with other works’.
Line 126: mdpi citation style
Line 132: note ‘Degussa P25 Titanium Dioxide Nanopowder’.
Line 139: you meant React Carousel?
Line 141-142: At 0 min the conversion is 0%. I cannot see these numbers that you listed from the Figure 2. Did you mean 30 min? That would make sence.
Line 147-149: it would be good to determine elimination half-life (in minutes) from Figure 2. That information is usually useful for comparison with another research.
Line 158: please provide pH value.
Line 167-171: please emphasize the best pH for this method based on these results.
Line 184-185: any known references?
Figure 6: can you guess why there was a drop in pH following the addition of H2O2?
Line 215: please cite this ‘previous work’.
Line 210-214: Are these ratios realistic for use in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant?
Line 227: you did not prove that BPA could be BROKEN down to smaller molecular organic compounds, just that it can be oxidized. Please re-phrase!
Line 242-243: provide all grant numbers.
Author Response
See attached file, please.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I reviewed again the manuscript. I think article is ready for publication in the present form. Thank you for considering my suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have addressed all my concerns. The manuscript is now much more fluent and reads well. Some small errors (I would not address them here) can be edited during proofing (if accepted).
The figure that shows the experimental setup is present in Response to reviewer, but not in the manuscript; however, due to its simple design, it is better that the authors left it out.
