Using Deep Eutectic Solvent-Assisted Plating Baths to Electrodeposit Composite Coatings: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article describes the kinetics and mechanism of electrochemical deposition of composite coatings from electrolytes based on eutectic solvents.  The work stimulates interest in further research on this topic, emphasizing the scientific significance and reliability of its results. It is important to note that this article can have a significant impact on the development in the field of electrodeposition of composite materials. The content of the article is original. However, it is recommended to make some changes.

My decision is major revision.

Comments

1) The article was written about electrostatic components, explain what these components are and their mechanism of action with the colloidal system.

2) Enter a definition of the stability and instability of the colloidal system for a more detailed understanding of the article, since readers have different specializations.

3) There is no legend in Figure 2, explain what the numbers from 1 to 4 mean.

4) In the article you often write about aqueous electrolytes and DES-based electrolytes, but almost nowhere are the compositions given.

5) When considering the data on the inclusion of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in the nickel electrodeposition matrix, you write that "what the de-assisted system offers is a relatively low TiO2 content compared to aqueous solutions under other similar conditions," but how much it is in at.%.

6) In the section "Silver-based composites" it is stated that "an increase in the SiC particle size from 50 nm to 2 mm did lead to a significant decrease in the amount of wear", give the value of wear.

7) After Figures 5 and 11, there is no description of the microstructure, a clear example of describing the microstructure and visualizing the size distribution of the structure is presented in the article: Zubar Tatyana et al. "Control of the growth mechanism of electrodeposited nanocrystalline NiFe films". Journal of the Electrochemical Society 166.6 (2019): D173.

8) Figure 6 is of poor quality, it should be improved.

9) Literary reference 72 has a 2017 release year, I recommend reading the article of 2023 on a special topic: Panasyuk Maria et al. "The mechanism of bubble formation and abnormal phase separation in the CoNiP system". Scientific Reports 13.1 (2023): 5829.

Minor language corrections must be done

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The author provide a comprehensive review on the use  of deep-eutectic solvents to be used in electrophoretic processes. despite some minor notes, in my opinion the work is publishable.

In particular, i would like to highlight:

- in line 196 it is said "from numerous researchers", but only two citations are presented. I personally would add some more;

- check line 211: the overall sense of the sentence is not clear;

- figure 2:  I would personally highlight the deviations from equation (3) for the sake of clarity;

- table 2: are the current density proposed in the first entry collected at the same potential? if not, how were those values chosen?

- can the labels in figure 4 be enlarged? it is difficult to read;

- in my opinion, a better layout for figure 5 can be chosen;

- for what concerns samples presented in figure 8, I would appreciate if sono data on the characterization could be presented as well, such as SEM, TEM or XPS.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The review article submitted by Vyacheslav Protsenko to the journal Coatings presents a systematic analysis of the literature on the electrodeposition of composite coatings using plating baths based on deep eutectic solvents (DESs). The manuscript begins with a presentation of the theoretical background, effectively explaining the enhanced aggregative stability of colloidal systems utilized in composite film electrodeposition with DES-based electrolytes from a physicochemical perspective. It also elucidates the kinetic stability of DES-based solutions and the influence of nucleation and growth mechanisms on deposition conditions. Furthermore, the review encompasses examples of existing works in the field, covering electrodeposition of composite coatings with various metallic matrices from DES-based electrolytes. Additionally, it discusses the characterization of resulting composite layer properties and their applications. In my assessment, this review article is well-suited for publication in this journal, and I recommend accepting it without requiring changes.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The review entitled "Using deep eutectic solvent-assisted plating baths to electrodeposit composite coatings: a review" describes the use of DES in the electrodeposition of metals and their composites. The review is well done and can be considered a tutorial review. The topic is very interesting and the author has an excellent knowledge of the subject. This review allows those who are not experts in the field to get all the important information in this context. He therefore recommends publication after some minor revisions.

In the concluding section, the author identifies as an interesting prospect the use of tunability in DES to finely modulate electrodeposition performance. In my opinion, this is indeed a very good point. However, this feature of DES is completely omitted from the introductory section. Tunability is the most interesting feature of DES and it is the one that allows them to be used in many areas. I therefore suggest including this aspect in the introduction by pointing out how, for example, by changing the nature of the components and their ratio, it is possible to change the chemical-physical properties (10.1038/s41467-021-25117-1).   

Line 59. The references used are too general. I suggest adding more specific ones. For example, the paper by Vieira Sanchez et al. reports on the toxicity of a high diversity of DES (10.1007/s11356-022-23362-5).  

Also, reference 17 is about ILs and not DESs. I suggest it be deleted or replaced.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

accept

accept