Recent Insight in Transition Metal Anchored on Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Catalysts: Preparation and Catalysis Application

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Title: Recent Insight in Transition Metal Anchored on Nitrogen-2 Doped Carbon Catalysts: Preparation and Organic Catalysis

1. Authors should polish the language of the manuscript. The English of the manuscript needs deeply revision. There are some grammatical and typo errors in the text that need to be re-checked and corrected more carefully.

2. Figures and captions should be check and verify overall manuscript content.

3. Authors must give more details about importance of N-doped carbon in electrocatalyst applications.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

1. What is the major advantages for using N-doped carbon materials in the catalytic applications.

2. Why, Transition metal is combained with carbon materials ? any chemical interactions between Transition metal or metal oxides and carbon or doepd carbon materials?

3. A The English of the manuscript needs deeply revision. There are many grammatical errors in the text that need to be re-checked and corrected more carefully.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

My concerns were well addressed.

Author Response

#3Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My concerns were well addressed.

Reply: Thanks for your valuable comments.

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 authors review research field dealing with the preparation and application of transition metal anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts. Papers from the last seven years has been cited and looked into and the review provides summary of the studies, including synthesis and applications.  

 Few notes:

 

- English language should be improved throughout the whole paper, some sentences are awkward and word choices are sometimes not appropriate. E.g. l.36 has “required” instead of “acquired”, l.48 has “may make”, some sentences are incomplete, l.101 “In the past decades, the rapid development of research on the preparation of transition metal anchored on nitrogen-doped porous carbon catalysts”, etc. The serious proofreading is necessary to make this review article appropriate for the publication.

- L. 148-151 quote another review article, where silicate materials MCM-41 and SBA-15 are discussed (ref. 23.) in regards of aggregation, which is irrelevant to the carbon-based catalysts.

- L. 158 “The generation of tiny metal hydroxides in the liquid phase is the stage of the process that is considered to be the most essential.” – difficult to understand what is meant here. Also this chapter has no quotations, which is illogical for the review article.

- It is not exactly clear, how Impregnation and Deposition - precipitation methods are different from one another, since they both include the same steps, as it seems.

- No comparison of Post-loading and Simultaneous method is given in respect of the quality of catalysts.

- L. 188.  Describes one-step pyrolysis method, while Fig. 2 shows two steps. No explanation is given. Also Zn is mentioned here, which, due to the fact that zinc has a complete d- orbitals at all oxidative states, it is not considered a transition metal.

- No insights on the electrochemical application of the carbon catalysts in question are given, however some quoted articles clearly have discussion on ORR or OER processes. This is extremely important field which cannot and should not be left out.

- The review itself is rather short and not very comprehensive, drawing too much attention to some details and giving no wider picture as review articles usually do.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is in general a high quality mini review of transition metal-anchored on N-doped carbon catalysts. It will be a good addition to the research community. I would recommend publication after addressing my following concerns.

1. Language is good but some details need to be paid attention to. For instance, " Generally, the synthesis of transition metal anchored on N-doped carbon catalysts generally include three steps: the preparation of …". This is minor but may cause some problems to a picky audience like me.

2. Please include a couple more recent studies in your review, unless limited by certain requirements from the journal. I realize that this report is too short and does not cover as many studies as I expected.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This review paper describes the synthesis procedures of metal anchored nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts and their applications in various reactions.

 

1.         The main reason for rejection is that the paper is not suitable as a review paper. It’s like a short report.

2.         This paper lacks scientific importance and description.

3.         The paper describes various synthesis techniques but does not explain how a change in a synthesis method affects the physical and chemical properties of the catalyst. The authors should describe and compare in tabular form the changes occurring when different synthesis methods are used.

4.         The authors should also list in tabular form, all advantages, and disadvantages related to various methods.

5.         In section 2, the authors only mentioned a paragraph about various metals loaded on nitrogen-doped carbon. This section should be extended by describing various metals used for different applications and should also relate their efficiencies in detail.

6.         Likewiseise a short description of the catalysts to various chemical reactions is insufficient. The authors should describe the mechanism of each reaction system in detail.

7.         Title of this paper is very complicated. The authors should revise the title to make it short and easy to understand.

8.         There are many typo errors. Correction should be made.

9.         The paper requires intensive English check and revision.

 

10.     The authors should emphasize the novelty and importance of the present review.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Unfortunately in its current form, even after the update, the paper is too short and lacks depth to be considered for the publication as a review. The approach is too basic and it is simply not enough to supply only one or two references for the given method: see chapters Deposition-precipitation method, Simultaneous introduction of metals and nitrogen into pre-synthesized carbon support, In-situ pyrolysis method of transition metal anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts. 

I would suggest to take a look at the other shorter reviews published by Catalysts, for example Optimization Strategies of Preparation of Biomass-Derived Carbon Electrocatalyst for Boosting Oxygen Reduction Reaction: A Minireview (Catalysts 2020, 10, 1472; doi:10.3390/catal10121472).

Reviewer 3 Report

As I mentioned in the previous review report that this paper is not suitable as a review paper. The study is very limited. This paper lacks scientific importance and description.

 

The authors added a few lines and a table for the mechanism, advantages, and disadvantages of various methods, and how a change in method affects the characteristics of the materials. The description is very limited and insufficient.