From the journal Environmental Science: Atmospheres Peer review history

26-Dec-2023

Dear Dr Baldoví:

Manuscript ID: EA-ART-10-2023-000156
TITLE: Influence of low concentrations of ozone, hydrogen peroxide and triethylene glycol on the antimicrobial activity in air and surfaces

Thank you for your submission to Environmental Science: Atmospheres, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. I sent your manuscript to reviewers and I have now received their reports which are copied below.

After careful evaluation of your manuscript and the reviewers’ reports, I will be pleased to accept your manuscript for publication after revisions.

Please revise your manuscript to fully address the reviewers’ comments. When you submit your revised manuscript please include a point by point response to the reviewers’ comments and highlight the changes you have made. Full details of the files you need to submit are listed at the end of this email.

Please submit your revised manuscript as soon as possible using this link :

*** PLEASE NOTE: This is a two-step process. After clicking on the link, you will be directed to a webpage to confirm. ***

https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/esatmos?link_removed

(This link goes straight to your account, without the need to log in to the system. For your account security you should not share this link with others.)

Alternatively, you can login to your account (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/esatmos) where you will need your case-sensitive USER ID and password.

You should submit your revised manuscript as soon as possible; please note you will receive a series of automatic reminders. If your revisions will take a significant length of time, please contact me. If I do not hear from you, I may withdraw your manuscript from consideration and you will have to resubmit. Any resubmission will receive a new submission date.

The Royal Society of Chemistry requires all submitting authors to provide their ORCID iD when they submit a revised manuscript. This is quick and easy to do as part of the revised manuscript submission process. We will publish this information with the article, and you may choose to have your ORCID record updated automatically with details of the publication.

Please also encourage your co-authors to sign up for their own ORCID account and associate it with their account on our manuscript submission system. For further information see: https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/journal-authors-reviewers/processes-policies/#attribution-id

Environmental Science: Atmospheres strongly encourages authors of research articles to include an ‘Author contributions’ section in their manuscript, for publication in the final article. This should appear immediately above the ‘Conflict of interest’ and ‘Acknowledgement’ sections. I strongly recommend you use CRediT (the Contributor Roles Taxonomy, https://credit.niso.org/) for standardised contribution descriptions. All authors should have agreed to their individual contributions ahead of submission and these should accurately reflect contributions to the work. Please refer to our general author guidelines https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/author-and-reviewer-hub/authors-information/responsibilities/ for more information.

I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Yours sincerely,
Prof. Nønne Prisle
Associate Editor, Environmental Sciences: Atmospheres

************

Reviewer 1

Review for EA-ART-10-2023-000156,

Main comments:
Airborne transmission is the main route of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens, hence there is a need to develop strategies to reduce airborne diseases. This study addresses the problem of indoor respiratory air hygiene and proposes a programme to reduce airborne microorganisms by atomising low non-toxic concentrations of H2O2, O3 and TEG and their mixtures. It was found that the survival of sporulating bacteria was reduced by 69.5% with the use of ternary mixtures; TEG aerosol showed the maximum antifungal activity in air and on surfaces, whereas a mixture of O3 gas and H2O2 aerosol reduced airborne bacterial survival by 79.6% and fungal survival by 100%; the ternary mixtures had higher antimicrobial activity against the airborne microbiota, with a reduction in the survival of bacteria and fungal survival by 93.8% and 100%, respectively. Their results suggest that the use of low concentrations of non-toxic antimicrobial compounds in indoor air is an effective strategy for reducing the risk of infection. My main suggestion is that it might be better to switch the order of sections 3.2 and 3.3 in the article, as section 3.2 discusses in detail the detection of chemical species in the room and the mechanisms of chemical reactions, and section 3.3 discusses in detail the effect of mixing different species on reducing microbial activity. Currently these two sections are somewhat disjointed and it would be easier for the reader to understand if the effects of different species and their mixing on reducing indoor microbial activity were analysed first and then the chemical reactions between the species were analysed so that the differences in effects could be explained in detail. Overall, this work is of great interest and a very urgent current study. I recommend that the article be accepted for publication with minor revisions.

Specific comments:
1) Abstract, It is proposed that the three paragraphs be merged into one.

2) Line 72, occupied or non-occupied?

3) Line 127, “5.15 m x 3 m x 2.45 m”, “x” should be changed to “×”.

4) Line 129, “the room was not airtight as it was connected to the usual building ventilation system”. Does this “connection” affect the results of the experiment?

5) Line 179, The words of “O3 + H2O2 + TEG:” should be removed.

6) Line 229, full name of “SEM” is needed here.

7) Figure 1, It is recommended to mark the distance of the air outlet from the floor in the figures, not from the ceiling.

Reviewer 2

This manuscript entitled 'Influence of low concentrations of ozone, hydrogen peroxide and triethylene glycol on the antimicrobial activity in air and surfaces' dealt with the effectiveness of three chemicals against surface and airborne microorganisms evidenced by using various experimental procedures. However, some parts of the description in this manuscript should be revised in order to be suitable for publishing.

Introduction
Three chemicals are being dealt with in this study, but additional explanation is needed on how and to what extent they are being used to prevent coronavirus. In particular, and explanation of actual use of triethylene glycol to prevent Covid19 is needed.

Material and methods
A detailed explanation the method of antimicrobial assay is needed.

3.2.2.Discussion
This section is too verbose and based mainly on theoretical content. It is recommended that this section is briefly mentioned with the content that is directly related to this study.

4. Conclusions
This section is not organized with the significant message or perspective, or is filled with repeated contents of the results. It is recommend that this section is briefly mentioned through the important content from the results of this study.

REVIEWER REPORT(S):
Referee: 1

Comments to the Author
Review for EA-ART-10-2023-000156,

Main comments:

Airborne transmission is the main route of transmission of SARS-CoV-2
and other pathogens, hence there is a need to develop strategies to
reduce airborne diseases. This study addresses the problem of indoor
respiratory air hygiene and proposes a programme to reduce airborne
microorganisms by atomising low non-toxic concentrations of H2O2, O3
and TEG and their mixtures. It was found that the survival of
sporulating bacteria was reduced by 69.5% with the use of ternary
mixtures; TEG aerosol showed the maximum antifungal activity in air
and on surfaces, whereas a mixture of O3 gas and H2O2 aerosol reduced
airborne bacterial survival by 79.6% and fungal survival by 100%; the
ternary mixtures had higher antimicrobial activity against the
airborne microbiota, with a reduction in the survival of bacteria and
fungal survival by 93.8% and 100%, respectively. Their results suggest
that the use of low concentrations of non-toxic antimicrobial
compounds in indoor air is an effective strategy for reducing the risk
of infection. My main suggestion is that it might be better to switch
the order of sections 3.2 and 3.3 in the article, as section 3.2
discusses in detail the detection of chemical species in the room and
the mechanisms of chemical reactions, and section 3.3 discusses in
detail the effect of mixing different species on reducing microbial
activity. Currently these two sections are somewhat disjointed and it
would be easier for the reader to understand if the effects of
different species and their mixing on reducing indoor microbial
activity were analysed first and then the chemical reactions between
the species were analysed so that the differences in effects could be
explained in detail. Overall, this work is of great interest and a
very urgent current study. I recommend that the article be accepted
for publication with minor revisions.
Thank you very much for your comments, we appreciate your words and we have tried to change the aspects you mentioned. Firstly, we switched sections 3.2 and 3.3 so now they are: 3.2 Antimicrobial Assays and 3.3 Chemical analysis of the nebulized compounds.


Specific comments:
1) Abstract, It is proposed that the three paragraphs be merged into one.
We have tastefully rewritten the abstract so now it has only one paragraph.

2) Line 72, occupied or non-occupied?
Non-occupied. Here, we wanted to evidence the toxic potential of high concentrations of the products we want to use. So, at high concentrations, they only must be used in non-occupied environments.

3) Line 127, “5.15 m x 3 m x 2.45 m”, “x” should be changed to “×”.
We changed the signs to the ones you kindly advised us to use.

4) Line 129, “the room was not airtight as it was connected to the
usual building ventilation system”. Does this “connection” affect the
results of the experiment?
The connection between the room and the building ventilation system did not affect the results of the experiments because the ventilation system was turned off, so it was not an active ventilation flow that could modify or interfere with gas dynamics and gas distribution in the room.

5) Line 179, The words of “O3 + H2O2 + TEG:” should be removed.
We deleted the words as advised by you.

6) Line 229, full name of “SEM” is needed here.
We added the full name of the abbreviation so it can be easily understood.

7) Figure 1, It is recommended to mark the distance of the air outlet
from the floor in the figures, not from the ceiling.
Thanks you for the comment, we added the distance of the air outlet from the floor and we kept the distance from the ceiling to give more information.





Referee: 2:

Comments to the Author:

This manuscript entitled 'Influence of low concentrations of ozone,
hydrogen peroxide and triethylene glycol on the antimicrobial activity
in air and surfaces' dealt with the effectiveness of three chemicals
against surface and airborne microorganisms evidenced by using various
experimental procedures. However, some parts of the description in
this manuscript should be revised in order to be suitable for
publishing.


Introduction
Three chemicals are being dealt with in this study, but additional
explanation is needed on how and to what extent they are being used to
prevent coronavirus. In particular, and explanation of actual use of
triethylene glycol to prevent Covid19 is needed.
Authors have introduced further discussion introducing references of other studies in which the microbial activity against airborne SARS-CoV-2 by the chemical agents used in our manuscript was tested. The inputs addressing this point could be found in pages 4 and 5. References 29-32, 38, 40.

Material and methods
A detailed explanation the method of antimicrobial assay is needed.
This part of the material and methods section has been rewritten. We think that the explanation of this section has been improved. We thank the reviewer for pointing this out.

3.2.2.Discussion
This section is too verbose and based mainly on theoretical content.
It is recommended that this section is briefly mentioned with the
content that is directly related to this study.
Section 3.3.2 The discussion of the chemical decomposition mechanism of H2O2, O3 and TEG in the air have been reduced from 4,5 pages to 3, following the reviewer’s suggestions. Now, we think that the discussion is clearer and more concise, directly related with results achieved in this study.

4. Conclusions
This section is not organized with the significant message or
perspective, or is filled with repeated contents of the results. It is
recommend that this section is briefly mentioned through the important
content from the results of this study.
The conclusion section has been entirely rewritten following the comments of the reviewer.
We thank the reviewer for all the comments, the response of which have contributed to improve the manuscript.

26-Feb-2024

Dear Dr Baldoví:

Manuscript ID: EA-ART-10-2023-000156.R1
TITLE: Influence of low concentrations of ozone, hydrogen peroxide and triethylene glycol on the antimicrobial activity in air and surfaces

Thank you for your submission to Environmental Science: Atmospheres, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. I sent your manuscript to reviewers and I have now received their reports which are copied below.

After careful evaluation of your manuscript and the reviewers’ reports, I will be pleased to accept your manuscript for publication after revisions.

Please revise your manuscript to fully address the reviewers’ comments. When you submit your revised manuscript please include a point by point response to the reviewers’ comments and highlight the changes you have made. Full details of the files you need to submit are listed at the end of this email.

Please submit your revised manuscript as soon as possible using this link :

*** PLEASE NOTE: This is a two-step process. After clicking on the link, you will be directed to a webpage to confirm. ***

https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/esatmos?link_removed

(This link goes straight to your account, without the need to log in to the system. For your account security you should not share this link with others.)

Alternatively, you can login to your account (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/esatmos) where you will need your case-sensitive USER ID and password.

You should submit your revised manuscript as soon as possible; please note you will receive a series of automatic reminders. If your revisions will take a significant length of time, please contact me. If I do not hear from you, I may withdraw your manuscript from consideration and you will have to resubmit. Any resubmission will receive a new submission date.

The Royal Society of Chemistry requires all submitting authors to provide their ORCID iD when they submit a revised manuscript. This is quick and easy to do as part of the revised manuscript submission process. We will publish this information with the article, and you may choose to have your ORCID record updated automatically with details of the publication.

Please also encourage your co-authors to sign up for their own ORCID account and associate it with their account on our manuscript submission system. For further information see: https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/journal-authors-reviewers/processes-policies/#attribution-id

Environmental Science: Atmospheres strongly encourages authors of research articles to include an ‘Author contributions’ section in their manuscript, for publication in the final article. This should appear immediately above the ‘Conflict of interest’ and ‘Acknowledgement’ sections. I strongly recommend you use CRediT (the Contributor Roles Taxonomy, https://credit.niso.org/) for standardised contribution descriptions. All authors should have agreed to their individual contributions ahead of submission and these should accurately reflect contributions to the work. Please refer to our general author guidelines https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/author-and-reviewer-hub/authors-information/responsibilities/ for more information.

I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Yours sincerely,
Prof. Nønne Prisle
Associate Editor, Environmental Sciences: Atmospheres

************

Reviewer 2

This revised manuscript entitled 'Influence of low concentrations of ozone, hydrogen peroxide and triethylene glycol on the antimicrobial activity in air and surfaces.' dealt with the effectiveness of three chemicals against airborne and surface microorganisms with several assays. The results could be useful to confirm the application of antimicrobial compounds that reduce infection risk.
However, some parts of the content in this manuscript should be revised to be suitable for publication.

Abstract
3 chemicals concentration were written as '≤ ppm', if so, the concentration of chemicals on page 14-15 should be expressed as 'equal to or less than'.

'non-toxic' word in this manuscript is not suitable expression, because 'toxic' is inherent nature of a substance. In other words, even though it is low concentration, the nature can not changeable. Therefore, in this case, it is suggested to use 'safe concentration' or other suitable term.

Result and discussion
It is recommended that 'Figure 1 (a)' table be made in separate and independent table. In addition, there is no concentration of TEG in Figure 1 (a).
The lack of limitations in this study should be mentioned in the Discussion part.

Reviewer 1

The authors have made good revisions based on the review comments and I have no more comments to make.

REVIEWER REPORT(S):
> Referee: 2
>
> Comments to the Author
> This revised manuscript entitled 'Influence of low concentrations of
> ozone, hydrogen peroxide and triethylene glycol on the antimicrobial
> activity in air and surfaces.' dealt with the effectiveness of three
> chemicals against airborne and surface microorganisms with several
> assays. The results could be useful to confirm the application of
> antimicrobial compounds that reduce infection risk.
> However, some parts of the content in this manuscript should be
> revised to be suitable for publication.
>
> Abstract: 3 chemicals concentration were written as '≤ ppm', if so, the concentration of chemicals on page 14-15 should be expressed as 'equal to or less than'.
RESPONSE: We have specified the chemical concentration in the abstract according to the data given in the main text. Thank you for pointing this out.

'non-toxic' word in this manuscript is not suitable expression, because 'toxic' is inherent nature of a substance. In other words, even though it is low concentration, the nature can not changeable.Therefore, in this case, it is suggested to use 'safe concentration' or other suitable term.
RESPONSE: As suggested by the reviewer, we replaced the term “non-toxic” with “safe” throughout the manuscript. >
> Result and discussion. It is recommended that 'Figure 1 (a)' table be made in separate and independent table. In addition, there is no concentration of TEG in Figure 1 (a).
RESPONSE: This figure has been split into figure 1 and table 2 as recommended. TEG concentration was not measured in these assays.

> The lack of limitations in this study should be mentioned in the Discussion part.
RESPONSE: We think that the limitations of the study should be mentioned. We included the following text in lines 465-477 of the revised form of the manuscript:
“Our study presents several limitations. First, we mentioned that the assays were performed in a real scenario in which, however, some conditions were controlled, such as the lack of active ventilation. In real-life conditions, doors and windows are regularly opened and closed, and the air recirculation system and air conditioning units are working. In this case, the concentration of the nebulized chemical compounds will fluctuate and be diluted. Second, the concentration of CO2, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, among other indicators of air ventilation were not measured. The collection of this data would have been useful in the context of this study. Finally, not all the bacteria and fungi species present in the room could be identified, whereas virus were not analysed. The analysis on a broader range of microorganisms will provide a more complete picture of the antimicrobial potential of the candidate compounds. Future studies addressing the antimicrobial potential of safe concentrations of candidate compounds should consider these recommendations”.

09-Apr-2024

Dear Dr Baldoví:

Manuscript ID: EA-ART-10-2023-000156.R2
TITLE: Antimicrobial activity of safe concentrations of ozone, hydrogen peroxide, and triethylene glycol in air and surfaces

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript to Environmental Science: Atmospheres. I am pleased to accept your manuscript for publication in its current form. I have copied any final comments from the reviewer(s) below.

You will shortly receive a separate email from us requesting you to submit a licence to publish for your article, so that we can proceed with the preparation and publication of your manuscript.

You can highlight your article and the work of your group on the back cover of Environmental Science: Atmospheres. If you are interested in this opportunity please contact the editorial office for more information.

Promote your research, accelerate its impact – find out more about our article promotion services here: https://rsc.li/promoteyourresearch.

We will publicise your paper on our Twitter account @EnvSciRSC – to aid our publicity of your work please fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/211263048265047

How was your experience with us? Let us know your feedback by completing our short 5 minute survey: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/RSC-author-satisfaction-energyenvironment/

By publishing your article in Environmental Science: Atmospheres, you are supporting the Royal Society of Chemistry to help the chemical science community make the world a better place.

With best wishes,

Prof. Nønne Prisle
Associate Editor, Environmental Sciences: Atmospheres

Reviewer 2

This revised manuscript is well written overall, reflecting reviewers' comments enough. Revised manuscript describes the antimicrobial activity of three chemicals very well evidenced by various kinds of assays. I think these results could give influential impacts to the disinfectants research area. I think this revised MS might be acceptable to publish without modification.