Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Conclusions have not been written properly. Please rephrase.
2. What do the authors mean by the properties remained constant. Rewording and language has to be significantly improved for the benefit of readers.
3. Line 244 does not include any references. Have there been any past reports that explains the relationship of the phase angle to the electro-catalytic activity. Addition literatures needs to be added.
4. Why does CoP exhibit a very different CV curves compared to MoP and NiP ?
5. Comparitive performance from the past reports on phosphide needs to be included on the electrocatalytic performance.
6. More explanations needs to be added, on why authors found an improved performance with NiP specimen.
7. Authors need to ensure references are included for the results, being discussed.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

 

Point 1: Conclusions have not been written properly. Please rephrase.

Response 1: I rewrote all again.

 

Point 2: What do the authors mean by the properties remained constant. Rewording and language has to be significantly improved for the benefit of readers.

Response 2: it means that some properties didn’t change with heat treatment and they were constant, I changed the phrase again.

 

Point 3: Line 244 does not include any references. Have there been any past reports that explains the relationship of the phase angle to the electro-catalytic activity. Addition literatures needs to be added.

Response 3: thanks for you attention I put the reference for this phrase.

 

Point 4: Why does CoP exhibit a very different CV curves compared to MoP and NiP ?

Response 4: CoP has different shapes of particles in the composite from MoP and NiP so this is one of the reasons that in CV curves because of differences in potential in CoP the curve of it is a little smoother and softer than MoP and NiP.

 

Point 5: Comparitive performance from the past reports on phosphide needs to be included on the electrocatalytic performance.

Response 1: yes of course I put them in the introduction and some of them in the conclusion.

 

Point 6: More explanations needs to be added, on why authors found an improved performance with NiP specimen.

Response 1: all highlighted parts in the body text are about NiP, please check them, and if it needs something more just let me know.

 

Point 7: Authors need to ensure references are included for the results, being discussed.

Response 7: references [15], [16], [17], [18] , [19], and [20] are used in results and discussion.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper devoted to investigation of electrocatalytic activity of nickel foam activated with Co, Mo, and Ni phosphide nanostructures prepared by plasma hydrothermal method in order to be used to release hydrogen and oxygen. This is an important and relevant topic. I think that the paper can be accepted in present form.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

 

Point 1: This paper devoted to investigation of electrocatalytic activity of nickel foam activated with Co, Mo, and Ni phosphide nanostructures prepared by plasma hydrothermal method in order to be used to release hydrogen and oxygen. This is an important and relevant topic. I think that the paper can be accepted in present form.

 

Response 1: Thank You!

Reviewer 3 Report

This is study author reported the electrocatalytic activity of nickel foam activated with cobalt, molybdenum, and nickel phosphide nanostructures prepared by plasma hydrothermal method to be used to release hydrogen and oxygen. The results show that nickel phosphide presents the highest electrocatalytic activity than the other phosphides developed in this research. I have some minor clarifications as below:

 

1. In the introduction section, the author should highlight the novelty of the present work with existing phosphide nanoparticles.
2. Explain the advantages or disadvantages of phosphide nanoparticles over sulfide nanoparticles.
3. Please provide the JCPDS No. for cobalt, molybdenum, and nickel phosphide nanostructures in the XRD results.
4. To see the impedance behavior, please inset the magnification image of the Nyquist lot in fig .7a (X, 100, and Y 100).

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

 

This is study author reported the electrocatalytic activity of nickel foam activated with cobalt, molybdenum, and nickel phosphide nanostructures prepared by plasma hydrothermal method to be used to release hydrogen and oxygen. The results show that nickel phosphide presents the highest electrocatalytic activity than the other phosphides developed in this research. I have some minor clarifications as below:

 

Point 1: In the introduction section, the author should highlight the novelty of the present work with existing phosphide nanoparticles.

Response 1: yes of course I did it you can see them in highlighted parts.

 

Point 2: Explain the advantages or disadvantages of phosphide nanoparticles over sulfide nanoparticles.

Response 2: I explained all advantages and compared NiP with MoP and CoP.

 

Point 3: Please provide the JCPDS No. for cobalt, molybdenum, and nickel phosphide nanostructures in the XRD results.

Response 3: the JCPDS does not exist. These particular files have never been, are not, and never will be free; it a commercial only database. There are other free databases, however, I put them in this file and in the XRD graph.

the diffraction peaks at 31.60°, 36.31°, 46.23°, 48.13°, and 56.78° can be assigned to the (011), (111), (112), (211), and (301) crystalline planes of CoP (JCPDS No. 29–0497)

MoP (JCPDS No. 75-0449), and NiP (JCPDS No. 65-0380)

 

Point 4: To see the impedance behavior, please inset the magnification image of Nyquist lot in fig .7a (X, 100 and Y 100).

Response 4: Thanks for your recommendation but the important part is where they finish, the initial part is not important, and if I but more mag. 100*100 all shapes will go out of order so after many changes I prefer to keep them like this.