AgBr/(Sr0.6Bi0.305)2Bi2O7 Heterostructured Composites: Fabrication, Characterization, and Significantly Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I recommend the manuscript for publication without any further modification.
Author Response
Point1: I recommend the manuscript for publication without any further modification.
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: catalysts-488417
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: AgBr/(Sr0.6Bi0.305)2Bi2O7 heterostructured composites: Fabrication, characterization, and significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity
Authors: Xinling Wang, Di Zhu, Yan Zhong, Dianhui Wang, Chaohao Hu*
This paper deals with the synthesis and characterisation of a Bi oxide-containing composites for possible applications in photocatalysis.
The authors report present with enough accuracy in a rather concise but clear manner all the aspects connected to synthesis and subsequent characterization.
The manuscript is well written, figure and SI material are well edited; references are numerous and well chosen.
In my opinion there is only a minor point that needs attention: in the 2.2 Morphology analysis section the authors report the distances corresponding to the fringe spacings with 4 significant figures. In my opinion it is not likely to be possible, but more probably this is the assignment done on the basis of the indexing along the JCPDS cards. The authors could then emend this with more significant numbers with two significant figures.
For the above reason I propose to accept to be published in Catalysts this manuscript after this very minor revision.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 2: In my opinion there is only a minor point that needs attention: in the 2.2 Morphology analysis section the authors report the distances corresponding to the fringe spacings with 4 significant figures. In my opinion it is not likely to be possible, but more probably this is the assignment done on the basis of the indexing along the JCPDS cards. The authors could then emend this with more significant numbers with two significant figures.
Response 2:
Answer: According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we have characterized the distances corresponding to the fringe spacings with two significant figures based on characterization data of Digital Micrograph, which matches the JCPDS card very well.
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
The paper "AgBr/(Sr0.6Bi0.305)2Bi2O7 heterostructured composites: 2 Fabrication, characterization, and significantly 3 enhanced photocatalytic aktivity" is very interesting work presenting new type of visible-light active photocatalytic material. I whould like to recomend it for publication after couple of corrections:
page 3/92 is wrong number of figure. Instead of 8(c) should be 3(c).
page 6/figure 6(b) According to my opinion the describtion of which curves belong to the which axes should be improved.
chapters 2.4 Photocatalytic properties of AgBr/SBO catalysts and 2.5 Photocatalytic mechnism of AgBr/SBO catalysts are not writen as discussion. The referencies supported the authors claiming shoul be added.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have presented here a study into a potentially interesting system and have included well presented images as part of their work.
Unfortunately the quality of the text is far too low to merit publication.
The motivation behind the work, and the rationale for the methods and compositions chosen is very hard to understand.
The English language is used quite poorly, rendering the content of the work indecipherable.
It is suggested that authors seek the assistance of a native speaker of the English language before preparing future manuscripts.
The study of methylene blue degradation is not a sufficiently comprehensive approach for the characterisation of photocatalytic activity.
Reviewer 3 Report
The article about the formation a composite (heterojunction) in order to improve the photocatalytic improvement is correctly structured and shows interesting results about the efficiency of AgBr and (Sr0.6Bi0.305)2Bi2O7.
Nevertheless, some references should be included and a couple of points should be taken into account before its publication:
It is mentioned that “Nowadays, researchers have devoted much effort to exploring various photocatalysts beyond the mostly studied TiO2”. But in many fields, TiO2 is joined to ZnO because they both are semiconductors with similar band gap and ZnO presents defects (vacancies). Given that the presence of vacancies and band gap are mentioned also in the next paragraph and, nevertheless this part in the introduction section means a general idea, ZnO should be included and some references should be added:
J. J. Reinosa, C. M. Álvarez Docio, V. Zapata-Ramírez, J. F. Fernández. Hierarchical nano ZnO-micro TiO2 composites: High UV protection yield lowering photodegradation in sunscreens, Ceramics International 2018, 44(3), 2827-2834
J. J. Reinosa, P. Leret, C. M. Álvarez Docio, A. del Campo, J. F. Fernández, Enhancement of UV absorption behavior in ZnO-TiO2 composites. Bol. Soc. Esp. Ceram. Vid. 2016, 55, 55-62.
In Figure 2, FTIR study, there are signals that correspond to CH groups. Where are they coming from?
Regarding the co-existence of Bi3+ and Bi5+, is it possible to know their ratio? For instance, a XANES study would confirm this aspect.
Best regards
