Electrochemical Fingerprint of CuS-Hexagonal Chemistry from (Bis(N-1,4-Phenyl-N-(4-Morpholinedithiocarbamato) Copper(II) Complexes) as Photon Absorber in Quantum-Dot/Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper deals with the enhancement of photosensitizer performance. To do that the authors report the fabrication of hexagonal CuS nanocrystals as a possible solution.

Despite the importance of this topic, the paper lacks scientific rigour, especially in the electrochemical characterizations where the discussion is very poor and not analyse in detail.

I suggest a major revision that means with a deeper analysis of material behaviour

Author Response

Please find the attached for CATALYSTS 729532

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I think, the manuscript "Electrochemical finger print of CuS-Hexagonal
chemistry from bis(N-1,4-phenyl-N-(4-morpholinedithiocarbamato)
Copper(II) complexes as a photon absorber in QDSSCs" can be published in Catalysts. However, the following minor corrections should be made:

1. Title: Please write "hexagonal" and "copper(II)" instead of "Hexagonal" and "Copper(II)", respectively. 
2. Also, please avoid abbreviations in the title. Write "quantum dot/dye-sensitized solar cells" instead of "QDSSCs".
3. Title and text: The names of complexes (bis(N-1,4-phenyl-N-(4-morpholinedithiocarbamato)copper(II) complexes) should be corrected.
4. Line 179:  Please write "oxide" instead of "Oxide".
5. Line 181: Please write "oleic" instead of "Oleic".

Author Response

Please find the attached CATALYSTS 729532

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors improved the quality of the manuscript and it can be considered ready for the publication

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, the authors deal with the interesting area of the development of novel materials for quantum dot sensitized solar cells. On the first stage, they prepared CuS nanocrystals with hexadecylamine capping agent and without it using the known method and then the authors fabricated solar cells and studied their characteristics.

However, the MS under review is extremely hard to read and the results reported here to understand, as, in my opinion, it is poorly organized and contains a lot of abbreviations without decryptions. English is also poor and should be carefully checked by a native speaker.

In overall, I recommend this manuscript (appropriately and substantially rewritten) to publish in Catalysts after the major revision.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents the results of the preparation of hexagonal CuS nanocrystal structures that have been characterized by the morphological, structural and electrochemical point of view.  

Despite the topic is currently of interest the development of the paper is not so clear and the results require to be improved as well as the form to be acceptable for the publication.

Below some comments about the study.

English and structure of the paper

There are several typing errors inside the text. They are especially related to concordance between the subjects and the verbs, verbs form (sometimes present tense is used, others the past). Other errors are about singular and plural form. Some examples are

Line 50: this qualities

Line 62: challanges to this is the...

Line 69: This study adopt

Line 71: Direct deposition is use

Line 86: larger surface area are obtain

Line 86: this surface area enhance

Line 179: The process were allow

...

2. Scientific content:

Line 80/81: please discuss more in detail the scan-rate dependency of the diffusion effect. Did you study the system at different scan-rate?

Figure 1: the current density axis can be clearer if presented in the scientific version 

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy - The discussion is poor and not clear, must be improved with a more detail presentation of the main contributions. Figure 2 does not respect the standard adopted for the presentation of EIS curves, which require a similar step on x-axis and y-axis. Moreover, the letters (a) and (b) on the Figures are lacked. In the presentation of the EIS technique at the bottom of the paper please introduce the amplitude of the perturbation used.

In the I-V discussion where the conversion efficiencies for both systems are reported it is important to report a comparison with the reference one.

In the material section, the materials producers are not reported as well as their purity

The paper completely missing a preliminary analysis of the effect of the main variables which influence the degradation of QDCCS