Selective Oxofunctionalization of Cyclohexane and Benzyl Alcohol over BiOI/TiO2 Heterojunction
, Romina Romero 1, Lorena Cornejo-Ponce 1, Claudio Salazar 2, Juan DÃaz 3, Victoria MelÃn 3, Héctor D. Mansilla 3, Gina Pecchi 3,4 and David Contreras 3,4,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The research work based on BiOI/TiO2 photocatalyst is promising. However, there are some revision need to be done before acceptance.
- In the introduction, some refs based on BiOX photocatalysts need to be included.
Solvothermally grown BiOCl catalyst for photodegradation of cationic dye and fluoroquinolone-based antibiotics
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics 31 (12), 9685-9694
Sunlight-Active BiOI Photocatalyst as an Efficient Adsorbent for the Removal of Organic Dyes and Antibiotics from Aqueous Solutions
Molecules 26 (18), 5624
- Why did you prefer to create BiOI/TiO2 photocatalyst? What is the novelty?
- As seen in Table 1, did all photocatalyst showed the same pore size? This is suggested the mesoporous nature of the photocatalysts?
- It is suggested that monitoring of hydroxyl radicals can be done by performing the creation of hydroxy-phthalic acid. This can be seen in the refs in 1 as well.
- What is the novelty of preparation of BiOI/TiO2 photocatalyst by chem precipitation method?
Author Response
We would like to thank the Editor and the reviewers for providing critical comments of our manuscript. We have considered each comment. All the observations were attended in the revised version of the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this paper, the authors studied the selective carbonylation of cyclohexane and benzyl alcohol with titanium dioxide and bismuth iodide oxide heterojunction as photocatalysts. The oxidation products obtained by carbonylation of cyclohexane are cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone. The yield obtained with BiOI/TiO2 photocatalysts were higher than obtained with pure bismuth oxyiodide. The higher performance of this material with respect to pure BiOI was attributed to its higher specific area. There are some issues which the authors should address them before acceptance process of the paper. Here are my comments:
- What are the advantages of this job over other jobs? The author is advised to make a table for comparison.
- The title of the article is too long and the authors need to simplify it.
- Photocatalytic reactions are very common, and the author should delete Figure 6.
- Photocatalytic reaction under visible light is very common, and the author needs to supplement a large number of relevant literature.
- For high efficiency photocatalysts, the following work should be mentioned by the author, such as: J. Catal. 373 (2019)161-172; Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 34 (2013) 3039–3045; Appl. Catal. A-Gen. 590 (2020) 117342; Appl. Catal. B-Environ. 248 (2019) 380-387; Org. Biomol. Chem., 2018,16, 2406-2410; Electrochimica Acta 216(2016) 517-527; Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects 633(2)(2022) 127918
Author Response
We would like to thank the Editor and the reviewers for providing critical comments of our manuscript. We have considered each comment. All the observations were attended in the revised version of the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The present manuscript describes photocatalytic oxofunctionalization of certain organic compounds over TiO2, bismuth oxyiodide and TiO2-BiOI composite photocatalysts. Although the investigated catalysts are of interest, the catalysts are appropriately characterized and the manuscript is written relatively clearly, I cannot recommend it for publication as I have serious concerns about the photocatalytic experiments.
My primary concern is that as far as I can judge from the presented data (Tables 2 and 3), the conversion of the starting compound was in all cases almost negligible. This means that either the catalytic materials are inactive or the experimental design (involving the reaction mixtures, illumination, product detection, etc.) is inappropriate. I believe addressing this point is a must before attempting publication in a catalysis related journal. Moreover, photocatalytic studies must in all cases involve appropriate blank experiments (e.g. repeating the same measurement without light to see the extent of non-photoinduced processes or determining the background levels of the possible products).
There are other issues, which would still warrant a significant reworking of the manuscript. For example, it is unclear whether cyclohexane or cyclohexene was used as starting material, as both names are used, often almost in the same sentence. What efforts were made to identify the possible reaction products? What are the peaks in Fig. 7 and 8? The transformation of the starting compounds is almost certainly accompanied by hydrogen formation, which also should be monitored. Equation 2 should be reconsidered as it is incorrect in its present form; Figure 2D shows Tauc plots, not Kubelka-Munk plots. The content of Figs. 9 and 10 should be clarified in the captions.
Considering all of the mentioned issues, I believe this work is not suitable for publication in Catalysts in its present form.
Author Response
We would like to thank the Editor and the reviewers for providing critical comments of our manuscript. We have considered each comment. All the observations were attended in the revised version of the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The article has been systematically modified and can be accepted.
Author Response
We are grateful for all their suggestions and comments. These allowed the submission of an improved version of the manuscript. We hope that the new revised version of the manuscript will be suitable for publication in Catalysts.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The revised manuscript was significantly improved. Especially the newly inserted Tables 2 and 3 help to place the results into context.
I the revised work can be accepted for publication, but I still suggest to mention the control/blank experiments among the results.
Moreover, one or two small errors still should be corrected:
Line 377: please provide the unit for TiO2.
Line 407: please write "indirect", not "indirectly".
Author Response
REF: Manuscript ID catalysts-1597015
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments (Round 2)
Point 1: I the revised work can be accepted for publication, but I still suggest to mention the control/blank experiments among the results.
Response 1: We welcome your suggestions. In the revised version of the manuscript mention is made of the control experiments between results lines 220-222, lines 229-231, lines 257-258 and lines 297-298.
Point 2: Line 377: please provide the unit for TiO2.
Response 2: We regret having omitted this information. In the new revised version of the manuscript, the unit of measurement for TiO2 was provided (Line 453).
Point 3: Line 407: please write "indirect", not "indirectly".
Response 3: We apologize for the grammatical error. In the revised version of the manuscript the word "indirectly" was replaced by the word "indirect".
We are grateful for all your suggestions and comments. These allowed the submission of an improved version of the manuscript. We hope that the new revised version of the manuscript will be suitable for publication in Catalysts.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
