Ethyl 4-Ene-4-ferrocenyl-5,5-bis-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-pentanoate

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well written; there are only a few cosmetic questions, listed below, that should be rectified:

1. Introduction: "bearing the motif [ferrocene-alkene-(p-phenol)2]) to always have this trans motif" - please correct the syntax.
2. 3.3. X-ray Diffraction Experiment: "Thus, H atoms are located freely and refined anisotropically" - This statement contradicts the CIF data, where the H atoms are isotropic.
3. Fig. 2 shows the 1e compound, while Fig.3 -  apparently 1c. Is this a question of the projection? Please change a little the viewing direction.

See above

Author Response

Comment 1: Introduction: "bearing the motif [ferrocene-alkene-(p-phenol)2]) to always have this trans motif" - please correct the syntax.

Response 1: Thank you for your comment. We asked to three persons, experienced in writing articles in English, to check the whole article, and we followed their recommendations. This sentence was included into changes.

Before:

"For this reason, it is more convenient to synthesize the diphenol versions (Ferrocidiphenols, bearing the motif [ferrocene-alkene-(p-phenol)₂]) to always have this trans motif. Indeed, for monophenols, only around half of the molecules are in the trans configuration where the other half are in the cis configuration and are inactive."

After (page 1, first paragraph, line 8):

"Ferrocidiphenols, by the presence of the gem p-hydroxyphenyl groups in which all the molecules show the trans configuration, are efficient active compounds easily prepared…"

Sorry, with track changes enabled in Word, it is quite difficult to read.

Comment 2: 3.3. X-ray Diffraction Experiment: "Thus, H atoms are located freely and refined anisotropically" - This statement contradicts the CIF data, where the H atoms are isotropic.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing out this error. We did several tests but the sentence does not describe correctly the retained method. We changed it (page 6, 3.3. X-ray Diffraction Experiment, line 9): "Thus, the positions of the hydrogen atoms were freely refined."

Comment 3: Fig. 2 shows the 1e compound, while Fig.3 -  apparently 1c. Is this a question of the projection? Please change a little the viewing direction.

Response 3: Yes, it was a problem with the projection. Thank you for reporting this problem. With the former Figure 3, two CH2 seemed overlapped and only one was visible. We had chosen this view to make H bonds easy to see. But to see the two CH2 and to keep a good visibility of H bonds, we completely changed the view (almost flipped, because just changing the view a little did not give very good results with H bonds).

Thank you again for reviewing our article.

Dr. P. Pigeon