Enhanced Ammonia Gas Adsorption through Site-Selective Fluorination of Graphene

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There are much more scope to introduce many characterization results. A vital characterization RAMAN is Missing, also TEM etc. XPS insufficient record found. Author should revise the manuscript and resubmit. 

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

Thanks for the valuable comments on our manuscript entitled “Enhanced ammonia gas adsorption through site selective fluorination of graphene”. We highly appreciate the opportunity to revise our work and wish that the reviewers as well as the editor will be satisfied with our responses to the comments and the revisions of the manuscript. Please find our responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The language of the paper must be improved along with the improvement of Introduction part. For example on page 2 line 70, the authors mentioned "As shown in Fig. 1(b), the D band (at 1350 cm-1), which indicates the disorder level[25], is negligible in pristine graphene, implying a good quality of the graphene sample."  This sentence is not clear but with professional use of language the sentence can be improved for better understanding of the reader. The authors may split the sentence and write " As shown in Fig. 1(b), for FG sample the D band appears at 1350 cm-1, which indicates the disorder level[25]. The intensity of this band is significantly low (or weak) for pristine Graphene, referring to the less defects in PG sample."

There are several instances where the authors used such kind of sentences, thus causing ambiguous opinion in reader’s mind.

2. Problem statement is not clear, which should be included in the Introduction part to emphasize the sole aim of the current study. This can be achieved by adding at least 8-10 more references.

3. Why did the authors add gas sensing procedure in the results part? The gas sensing test procedure must be added in the experimental part.

In gas sensing procedure, it is not mentioned that at which biased voltage the sensing tests were carried out. It is an important test condition to be mentioned as applied voltage can significantly change the sensor response.

Are the sensing tests performed at room temperature? What was the real humidity value in the environment? Such information is missing, please add them.

4. FTIR results must be added in the paper as this can give you significant information about the surface functional group that may be related to sensor response and can be useful in further understanding the sensing mechanism. Please, see the following paper: https://doi.org/10.1039/C8NA00135A

5. The sensing parameter defined in equation 1 is not the sensitivity but the sensor response. According to the international union of pure and applied chemistry (IUPAC), the sensitivity is the slope of the calibration curve. See this: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssensors.2c00982

6. Why only CO was chosen as an interfering gas to see the selectivity of the sensor? There are other gases also (like H2), including oxidizing gases (NO2, CO2). Mention the selectivity factor of your both sensors.

7. The response in Fig. 2 doesn't seem to have achieved the saturation value in gas, longer time is required. Which makes such sensor not suitable for real life applications.

8. Why the reaction times were not estimated?

9. Sensing mechanism is not discussed in the paper, which is the sole part of the paper.

10. In Langmuir adsorption kinetics, better to include the analysis of dynamic responses of both samples, also for each concentration.

11. What is the stability of the sensor?

12. Conclusion is too generalize, write important findings of your results.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

Thanks for the valuable comments on our manuscript entitled “Enhanced ammonia gas adsorption through site selective fluorination of graphene”. We highly appreciate the opportunity to revise our work and wish that the reviewers as well as the editor will be satisfied with our responses to the comments and the revisions of the manuscript. Please find our responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Duan and co-workers reported an approach to introduce covalent C-F bonds via site-selective ion-beam-induced fluorination, and the graphene sensing response to ammonia gas is found to be considerably improved due to the enhanced gas adsorption on the surface of fluorinated graphene. This work is novel and systematic, which will be beneficial to the community involving high sensitive gas detections, and the paper is also well written. So I recommend publishing this work after some minor modifications:

1. More details on the starting graphene materials should be given to help others to between understand on the methods and process.

2. As a key technique, the fluorination approach should be described; especially some process parameter should be listed.

3. What are the advantages of this job over other related jobs? It is suggested that the author give a corresponding table to highlight the advantages of this work.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

Thanks for the valuable comments on our manuscript entitled “Enhanced ammonia gas adsorption through site selective fluorination of graphene”. We highly appreciate the opportunity to revise our work and wish that the reviewers as well as the editor will be satisfied with our responses to the comments and the revisions of the manuscript. Please find our responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

A comparative table highlighting some important parameters, with some previous works( atleast 5-7) to be given after Introduction section. 

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

Thanks for the valuable comments on our manuscript entitled “Enhanced ammonia gas adsorption through site selective fluorination of graphene”. We highly appreciate the opportunity to revise our work and wish that the reviewers as well as the editor will be satisfied with our response to the comment and the revision of the manuscript. Please find our response and revision in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf