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After the improvements made during the revision, the manuscript can now be accepted for publication.
I believe the reviewer's comments were considered and incorporated adequately. Hence, the manuscript can be accepted for publication.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - While the Academic Editor is happy to proceed to publication, our staff checks have noticed a couple of issues that still need to be resolved. Please address these, and then we can proceed to production and publication:
1) Figure Accessibility
Please adjust the red/green colors used on your figures to make them accessible to those with color blindness OR add labels so the figures aren't solely dependent on color to differentiate between the elements.
Please review our color blindness guidelines for figures. Note: Please do not replace the red/green colors with patterns in your figures. <https://peerj.com/about/author-instructions/#figure-style>
At the next revision, please provide replacement figures measuring minimum 900 pixels and maximum 3000 pixels on all sides, saved as PNG, EPS or vector PDF file format without excess white space around the images.
2) Acknowledgements
At the next revision, please remove all financial and grant disclosure information from the Acknowledgments:
The authors also thank to CAPES, CNPq, FAPEMIG by the financial support.
This information should only be provided in the Funding statement.#]
The reviewers identified a series of corrections/additions needed before the manuscript can be accepted. Please consider each of the suggestions and address them while resubmitting. I am confident that this will help enhance the manuscript's quality.
The authors have reported new TiO2 photocatalysts core@shell type were synthesized using SiO2 as
structural support. They have provided appropriate literature reviews and background details of their work. Provided high quality publishable figures in the main manuscript as well as in supplementary information.
The authors have provided elaborate details regarding their experimental design and adopted Appropriate methodologies for the work (scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectra etc).
Based on their experimental approach, the authors have demonstrated that the spherical shape of the composite nanoparticles present high regularity most likely due the immobilization of TiO2 on Stober sílica surface. The N2 adsorption and desorption isotherms revealed that the synthesized composites are mesoporous materials with mean pore sizes between 3 and 4 nm with approximately 20% of porosity. The estimated band gap energies were estimated for the composites were higher than that for the standard oxide. The authors have also shown that the composites showed excellent photocatalytic performance. In short the authors have provided much details about their findings and their conclusions are well stated based on their research. I recommend to publish this article in the journal.
1. There several typos in the manuscript. I recommend the authors proofread the final manuscript.
2. In the introduction, the authors need to clearly establish the motivation behind the study, how the results from their study going to help the other researchers working in this area? This is missing in the current manuscript.
3. Also, comment on how the photocatalytic performance of the TiO2@SiO2 catalysts presented in this study compares with TiO2@SiO2 catalysts reported in the literature.
Nothing to report.
Nothing to report
1. In certain parts of the the description of the results is ambiguous. For instance, on page 13, lines 327-330, the description is not clear, when the authors simply mention "the Eg higher". What is the being compared with what? Is this high compared to literature? Clarify?
2. In the submitted manuscript, the color labels are either missing or not clear. I recommend adding legends in each figure. This will help readers to look at the sample names directly in the figure. Also, mark/label the peaks of interest in figures pertaining to XRD and Raman study results.
Basic reporting is good but can be improved
Authors should include few more experimental techniques and results to support the findings.
Authors should improve the "Discussion" section and can be explain their results in a detailed way to convince the data rather reporting their findings.
1. Authors should mark the peaks in the FT-IR spectra and label each spectrum as inset or should use better appropriate way to distinguish each spectrum (applicable to all the diagrams).
2. It should be the arbitrary unit (a.u.) in the Y axis of figure 1.
3. Please make sure the spellings are correct through out the text. E.g. “Diffractogram” – wrongly spelled through out the text.
4. Authors should bring in more experimental results in order to support the objective of the research work.
5. The manuscript could be clear and professionally written to meet the standards of the journal.
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