Structural Engineering and Optimization of Zwitterionic Salts for Expeditious Discovery of Thermoresponsive Materials
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
You have a very similar paper out, with compounds of the same family, and I am surprised as to why that work was not cited:
Structural fine-tuning of zwitterionic salts for the discovery of LCST-type thermoresponsive materials
More references added could be beneficial
Text edits are necessary, for example p1, l33: involved in , p2, l75 , sulfone
Take out concise from all "concise synthesis" expression.
In your synthetic scheme, some of the yields are low. Why. There are ways these reactions can be pushed to near completion. Address in the paper where low yields
P8 l222, "pleasingly"???? Please rephrase
Although the work is pretty good, you left out an important discussion from a molecular engineering standpoint. Please discuss structure-property relationships, with respect to structure. Which molecualrfeatures impartUCST and why.
Author Response
December 30, 2021
Dr. Carlos Eduardo Sabino Bernardes
Guest Editor
Special Issue “Ionic Liquids: Green Solvents for the Future” of Molecules
MS: “Structural Engineering and Optimization of Zwitterionic Salts for Expeditious Discovery of Thermoresponsive Materials”
Authors: Yen-Ho Chu,* Chien-Yuan Chen, and Jin-Syuan Chen
Figures: 8 (+S1-S2); Supporting Information: 1
Enclosed please find our revised manuscript entitled “Structural Engineering and Optimization of Zwitterionic Salts for Expeditious Discovery of Thermoresponsive Materials” that we would like to submit for publication in the Molecules.
In this revised manuscript, we have incorporated all points addressed by the reviewers. Specifically, we have addressed the following points raised by the reviewer 1:
- “You have a very similar paper out, with compounds of the same family, and I am surprised as to why that work was not cited:
Structural fine-tuning of zwitterionic salts for the discovery of LCST-type thermoresponsive materials
More references added could be beneficial.”
We thank the reviewer for the constructive comment. As the reviewer pointed out and we totally agreed, we have accordingly addressed the points by adding (1) a new sentence (lines 247-251) at the end of the Section 2.8 in page 8, labeled in red, and (2) a new reference (reference 24, page 15), labeled in red, in the revised manuscript.
- “Text edits are necessary, for example p1, l33: involved in , p2, l75 , sulfone.
Take out concise from all "concise synthesis" expression.”
We thank the reviewer for pointing out and we totally agreed, we have accordingly addressed the points by (1) changing “involved” to “involved in” (line 33) in page 1 and (2) rephrase and shorten the “concise synthesis” to become “synthesis” throughout the revised manuscript.
The “1,3-propanesultone” (line 76, page 2), but not “1,3-propanesulfone” suggested by the reviewer, is correctly spelled.
- “In your synthetic scheme, some of the yields are low. Why. There are ways these reactions can be pushed to near completion. Address in the paper where low yields.
P8 l222, "pleasingly"???? Please rephrase”
We understood totally the reviewer’s point. In the original manuscript, we had explained their plausible causes of low yields in the last step with ZIL 4a-f synthesis and provided rationalization (lines 85-88, page 2). Albeit additional protection and deprotection of two hydroxy groups in 5a-f (i.e., 2 more synthetic steps required) might improve the isolated yields, no single ZIL however was found useful (i.e., low Tc value) in this ZIL4a-f sub-library for affinity extraction applications; that is, no further experimental optimization was attempted to improve isolated yields for ZIL 4a-f synthesis.
Also, as the reviewer pointed out and we agreed, we have accordingly addressed the point by amending the word “pleasingly” to “We were pleased that …” (line 231, page 8), labeled in red, in the revised manuscript.
- “Although the work is pretty good, you left out an important discussion from a molecular engineering standpoint. Please discuss structure-property relationships, with respect to structure. Which molecular features impart UCST and why.”
We thank the reviewer very much for pointing out and we totally agreed, we have accordingly addressed the points by adding a new paragraph (first paragraph in Conclusions section) (lines 503-515, page 13), labeled in red, in the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript "Structural Engineering and Optimization of Zwitterionic Salts for Expeditious Discovery of Thermoresponsive Materials" is devoted to research of N-triflimide (NTf)-based zwitter-ionic liquids (ZILs) and their application as thermosensitive materials at relatively low working temperature. There are a lot of new data in the manuscript. This study is interesting both from a fundamental and an applied point of view.
I think the manuscript may be published in the Molecules journal after minor revision.
- Line 44: It will be better to describe “NTf2”.
- It will be better to present and discuss Figs S1 and S2 in the main text.
- It will be better to name section 3.2 as “3.2. Synthesis and characterization of ionic liquids”
Author Response
We have also addressed the following points raised by the reviewer 2:
- “The manuscript "Structural Engineering and Optimization of Zwitterionic Salts for Expeditious Discovery of Thermoresponsive Materials" is devoted to research of N-triflimide (NTf)-based zwitter-ionic liquids (ZILs) and their application as thermosensitive materials at relatively low working temperature. There are a lot of new data in the manuscript. This study is interesting both from a fundamental and an applied point of view.
I think the manuscript may be published in the Molecules journal after minor revision.
Line 44: It will be better to describe “NTf2”.”
We thank the reviewer for the constructive comment. As the reviewer pointed out and we totally agreed, we have accordingly addressed the points by providing the full name of NTf2 (lines 45-46, page 2), labeled in red, in the revised manuscript.
- “2. It will be better to present and discuss Figs S1 and S2 in the main text.”
If allowed, we still considered that both Figures S1 and S2 are better disclosed as the supporting materials (in addition to a side reason of having eight figures already in the main text) and situated in the Supporting Information.
- “3. It will be better to name section 3.2 as “3.2. Synthesis and characterization of ionic liquids””
We thank the reviewer very much for pointing out and we totally agreed, we have accordingly addressed the point by modifying the section head to become “Synthesis and characterization of ionic liquids” (line 276, page 9), labeled in red, in the revised manuscript.
We have revised our manuscript and addressed all points raised by the reviewers. We hope that our manuscript is now in suitable form for publication.
Finally, we thank both reviewers very much, again, for their constructive comments, and are encouraged to pursue further our on-going program on the research of temperature-responsive materials.
Best wishes.
