Synthesis, Characterization, and Structure of Mixed-Ligand Cobalt (II) Complex with N, O Donor Sites
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Ganguly et al. report on a new mixed-ligand cobalt(II) complex studied in terms of structure and spectroscopic properties. There are some issues that need to be addressed prior to publication:
(1) The paper motivation is very general, the used ligand design is not clear. Please comment more in detail.
(2) The cell constant c has considerable esd. Could you please explain? How were cell constants refined? Were alternative cell choices considered? Is there a possibility of missed twinning? Evidence of thorough analysis is required.
(3) Figure 1: please revise the figure caption. Asymmetric unit contains 2 symmetry-independent molecules here.
Author Response
(1) The paper motivation is very general, the used ligand design is not clear. Please comment more in detail.
Response: Following your kind suggestion, we have added few comments related to ligand design and its use in results and discussion section.
(2) The cell constant c has considerable esd. Could you please explain? How were cell constants refined? Were alternative cell choices considered? Is there a possibility of missed twinning? Evidence of thorough analysis is required.
Response: The data does show twinning with the twin law [-1 0 0 0 -1 0 0.69 0 1]. The final structure is refined with hkl5.
(3) Figure 1: please revise the figure caption. Asymmetric unit contains 2 symmetry-independent molecules here.
Response: Caption revised.
Reviewer 2 Report
In this manuscript, the authors described one mixed-ligand Co(II) complex containing one N2O2 Schiff base ligand and two benzoate anions as ancillary ligands, and they characterized this complex with standard techniques including FT-IR, EA, UV-VIS and single crystal X-ray analysis.
It is stated that the complex in solution is fairly stable toward air-oxidation to Co(III) species, but the crystallization of the complex was performed by slow evaporation of the solvent in open air which I suppose was a long time procedure. Authors should make some more clear comments on the complex stability toward oxidation and elimination of products of oxidation.
Please provide table of crystal data and structure refinement parameters for studied complex in supporting information.
I prefer to use the more correct term “mixed-ligand” complexes.
So, I believe that altogether the manuscript is correctly written and after addressing the minor above-mentioned points, this article is suitable for publication.
Author Response
Following your kind suggestion, we have done the necessary corrections in the revised manuscript. The complex is stable for several days in solution and no aerial oxidation takes place in solution. So, crystallization of the complex was performed by slow evaporation of the solvent in open air.
Crystal data and structure refinement parameters provided as supplementary file.
Changes done and correct term, “mixed-ligand” is used throughout the manuscript.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The structure refinement and twinning handling shall be described in detail. At the moment there is no mention in the article while extensive description is needed. Also, the structure confidence is lower and this shall be reflected by the data analysis (detailed bond length/angle analyses are not possible). Please provide CIF file for review.
Author Response
The crystal exhibits inversion twinning as confirmed by Flack test [29]. Platon [30] was employed to get the twin law [-1 0 0 0 -1 0 0.69 0 1]. The final structure is refined with hkl5.
CIF was provided along with the supplementary data and same is also available from http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/conts/retrieving.html (CCDC 2183749)
