International Journal of Hydrogen Energy Response to Reviewers: A Rebuttal That Survives Re-Review (2026)
How to write a point-by-point response to reviewers for the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, where a major revision is judged on benchmarking, durability, and a clear hydrogen-energy advance rather than more characterization.
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International Journal of Hydrogen Energy at a glance
Key metrics to place the journal before deciding whether it fits your manuscript and career goals.
What makes this journal worth targeting
- IF 8.3 puts International Journal of Hydrogen Energy in a visible tier — citations from papers here carry real weight.
- Scope specificity matters more than impact factor for most manuscript decisions.
- Acceptance rate of ~~40-50% means fit determines most outcomes.
When to look elsewhere
- When your paper sits at the edge of the journal's stated scope — borderline fit rarely improves after submission.
- If timeline matters: International Journal of Hydrogen Energy takes ~~90-130 days median. A faster-turnaround journal may suit a grant or job deadline better.
- If open access is required by your funder, verify the journal's OA agreements before submitting.
How to use this page well
These pages work best when they behave like tools, not essays. Use the quick structure first, then apply it to the exact journal and manuscript situation.
Question | What to do |
|---|---|
Use this page for | Building a point-by-point response that is easy for reviewers and editors to trust. |
Start with | State the reviewer concern clearly, then pair each response with the exact evidence or revision. |
Common mistake | Sounding defensive or abstract instead of specific about what changed. |
Best next step | Turn the response into a visible checklist or matrix before you finalize the letter. |
Quick answer: An International Journal of Hydrogen Energy response to reviewers is a point-by-point rebuttal that wins on evidence, not prose. The hydrogen-energy advance bar carries into revision, so the replies that land are backed by a benchmark against the state of the art, durability or cycling data, and a clear mass and energy balance. Specify the exact page and line reference for every change, and keep every answer consistent across the unusually high number of reviewers this journal assigns before you upload to Editorial Manager.
Start with the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal readiness check before you resubmit, or work through this guide by hand. If the paper was rejected outright rather than sent back for revision, see where to submit after an International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rejection instead. For current metrics and scope, see the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy journal overview.
What does an International Journal of Hydrogen Energy response to reviewers require?
The page-and-line rule comes first because it is the most-cited rebuttal mistake. Every change you claim must point to a specific page and line in the revised manuscript, and you must state once at the top of the letter whether those numbers reference the original or the clean revised file. A reviewer who cannot locate a change in 30 seconds reads it as a change that was never made.
Three things make an International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal different from a generic one. First, the hydrogen-energy advance bar carries into revision: the same test that decides scope at submission, whether the work is a real production, storage, or utilization advance rather than adjacent chemistry, is what a reviewer applies again to your revised claims.
Second, the journal assigns an unusually high number of reviewers per round (SciRev author reports average about 5.8 reports), so consistency across reviewers is load-bearing in a way it is not at a two-referee journal. Third, a major revision here usually means new evidence, a benchmark or a durability run, not more characterization.
Our methodology for this guide: we reviewed the Elsevier guide for authors and journal-insights page, cross-checked the timeline and reviewer-count data against SciRev community reports, read the published electrocatalyst-benchmarking literature for the data norms reviewers apply, and compared all of it to our own pre-submission reviews of hydrogen-energy manuscripts, so every claim below traces to a primary source or our review corpus.
The journal also lists an open-access APC of USD 4,080, a sunk-cost reason to clear re-review the first time rather than risk a rejection on revision.
Element | What International Journal of Hydrogen Energy reviewers expect | What gets a second round or rejection |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Editor letter, then point-by-point per reviewer, each comment quoted | Free-form prose answering all comments together |
Evidence | Benchmark vs state of the art, durability or cycling data, mass and energy balance | More XRD/SEM characterization where an advance was questioned |
Specificity | Page and line for every manuscript change | "We have updated the manuscript" with no location |
Consistency | One answer to a shared point across all ~5.8 reviewers | Different numbers or framing for Reviewer 1 vs Reviewer 4 |
Tone | Evidence-led, defensive only where you have data | Defensive on every comment, arguing the reviewer is wrong |
Advance claim | Reframed around the hydrogen-energy consequence | Re-asserting novelty more loudly without new data |
Source: Elsevier International Journal of Hydrogen Energy guide for authors and journal-insights page, SciRev community reports, accessed June 2026; Manusights pre-submission review corpus.
The copyable International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal template
The journal's reviewers read several technical rebuttals at once, and there are more of them per paper than at most journals, so a clean, scannable structure is doing real work. Copy this skeleton, then replace the bracketed text with your own changes. Keep the reviewer text and your reply visually distinct.
Dear Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript [MS ID] for the
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. We are grateful to the reviewers
for their detailed reports. In response, we have added a benchmark
comparison against the current best-in-class result, a durability test,
and a full mass and energy balance. All page and line numbers below refer
to the CLEAN REVISED version.
Summary of major changes:
1. We added a benchmark table comparing our electrolyzer to the leading
reported systems (Table 3, page 8).
2. We added a 100-hour chronoamperometric durability run (Figure 6,
page 13, lines 280 to 305).
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 1
Comment 1.1: "The novelty over existing catalysts is not clear."
Response: We agree the contribution was understated. Rather than add
characterization, we added a benchmark against the three best reported
catalysts (Table 3, page 8) showing our overpotential at 10 mA/cm-2 is
lower at equal loading. We revised the advance claim accordingly on
page 2, lines 18 to 27.
Comment 1.2: "Stability data is missing."
Response: We have added a 100-hour chronoamperometric test at fixed
current density (new Figure 6) and report the activity retained. See
page 13, lines 280 to 305.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer 2
Comment 2.1: "The energy balance for the system is not given."
Response: We have added a full mass and energy balance and the
system-level efficiency (new Table 4, page 14, lines 320 to 340).The template carries the four tokens reviewers scan for: a letter to the editor, a per-reviewer structure, explicit action language ("we have added", "we revised"), and a page and line reference for every change. It maps directly onto the response-to-reviewers field in Elsevier Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager submission portal.
The page-and-line rule: cite the location of every change
State the exact page and line number for each manuscript revision, and reference the specific figure, table, or supplementary file you changed. This is the single most-cited rebuttal failure at this journal and across Elsevier energy titles. A reviewer who has to hunt for your change reads it as evasion. A reviewer who can click straight to page 13, lines 280 to 305, and see the new durability run finishes faster and re-reviews more favorably.
Never write "we have addressed this in the manuscript" without a location. Use the line numbers from the clean revised file, state that convention once at the top, and note when a change lives in a Supplementary figure rather than the main text. Author reports describe whole avoidable rounds caused by page and line numbers that referenced the wrong file.
Reviewer-text vs author-response typography
Make the reviewer's words and your reply visually distinct. Put each reviewer comment in bold or a colored text box, and lead your reply with a plain "Author response:" directly beneath it. This is rule six of the PLOS Ten Simple Rules, and the Nature Computational Science 2025 editorial on responding to reviewers makes the same point: a navigable, self-contained response document keeps editors and reviewers efficient.
The distinction matters more here than at most journals because the high reviewer count means more people are reading your letter at once, and a rebuttal where comment and reply blur together costs you attention from every one of them.
Tone calibration: how to phrase the hard replies
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy reviewers are domain experts who read a defensive reply as a refusal to do the work. With around 5.8 of them per round, a dismissive answer to one is visible to several. Calibrate every reply toward evidence, not argument.
Bad (defensive or vague) | Better (substantive and evidence-led) |
|---|---|
"The reviewer has misunderstood; our result is novel." | "We see how the contribution read as incremental. We added a benchmark against the leading systems (Table 3, page 8) and reframed the advance on page 2." |
"Stability testing is unnecessary for this proof of concept." | "We added a 100-hour chronoamperometric durability run (new Figure 6, page 13, lines 280 to 305) and report retained activity." |
"We have addressed this in the manuscript." | "We added the energy balance and system efficiency (new Table 4, page 14, lines 320 to 340)." |
"Our peak current density already demonstrates performance." | "We agree a single point is not enough; we now report overpotential at 10 mA/cm-2, the Tafel slope, and cycling stability (Figure 5, page 11)." |
"This is outside the scope of our paper." | "We agree this is beyond the present scope, so we added a limitations paragraph (page 18, lines 401 to 410) and a sensitivity bound rather than the full study." |
The pattern that works: concede where the reviewer is right, run the benchmark or durability test, point to the exact change, and push back only on a request that is genuinely out of scope, with a reason and an alternative.
The International Journal of Hydrogen Energy reviewer culture you are writing into
This is the official journal of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy, founded in 1976, and its reviewer pool is drawn from hydrogen production, storage, fuel-cell, and energy-systems specialists. Two features of that pool shape how you write the rebuttal.
First, the journal assigns a high number of reviewers per paper: SciRev author reports average about 5.8 reports per first round, well above the two or three typical elsewhere. That is the white space here.
It means your response is a group document read by many experts at once, and any inconsistency, a sample size or efficiency number framed one way for Reviewer 1 and another for Reviewer 4, is far more likely to be caught and to read as evasive. Reconcile every overlapping comment to a single answer before you upload.
Second, the hydrogen-energy advance bar is methodological, and it carries into revision. A reviewer who flags novelty after the manuscript survived the desk filter is usually telling you the contribution reads as adjacent electrochemistry or routine optimization, not a hydrogen-energy advance. You cannot answer that with assertion or more characterization.
You answer it with a benchmark against the current best-in-class number, durability or cycling data that turns a lab snapshot into a deployable result, and a mass and energy balance that shows the system consequence. The published electrocatalyst-benchmarking literature sets the data norm reviewers apply: overpotential at 10 mA/cm-2, Tafel slope, electrochemically active surface area, and chronoamperometric stability, with durability runs of at least 50 hours treated as a baseline for any deployment claim.
SciRev community data puts the first review round at roughly 2.0 months and the average number of rounds at about 2.0, which sets your planning clock for the revision you are about to write.
Before any of those reviewers see the paper, the handling editors screen for whether the work is genuinely a hydrogen-energy advance and filter anything that reads as adjacent chemistry, which is why author reports cluster the immediate-rejection decision around 10 days. A paper that clears that filter and earns a major revision is on the longer multi-round path, and your rebuttal has to satisfy both the editor's advance test and every reviewer's technical demands.
How this compares to the rest of the field matters for calibration. A response at Applied Energy faces a systems-modeling and energy-economics pool that wants sensitivity bounds and techno-economic framing, while at the Journal of Power Sources the contribution has to be the electrochemical device performance itself. The International Journal of Hydrogen Energy sits across all of these: production, storage, and utilization in one venue, a society-journal breadth, and a high reviewer count.
The practical consequence is that your rebuttal must satisfy more reviewers, from more sub-fields, each applying the hydrogen-energy advance test, than almost any peer journal.
Key Insight
Your International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal is read by an unusually large reviewer panel, each one applying the hydrogen-energy advance test to your revised claims. Answer the advance challenge with a benchmark and durability data, not with more characterization, and keep every overlapping answer identical across reviewers.
Readiness check
Run the scan while International Journal of Hydrogen Energy's requirements are in front of you.
See how this manuscript scores against International Journal of Hydrogen Energy's requirements before you submit.
In our pre-submission review work with International Journal of Hydrogen Energy submissions
In our pre-submission review work with International Journal of Hydrogen Energy submissions, the rebuttals that stall in a second or third round are rarely impolite and rarely lazy. They fail because they answer a reviewer who asked for evidence with words or with the wrong kind of data. Three named patterns account for most of the rejection-on-revision outcomes we see, and each maps to a specific manuscript component you can test in your own draft response before you upload.
Answering a novelty or advance challenge with more characterization. This is the single most common and most expensive International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal failure we review. A reviewer questions whether the catalyst, electrode, or electrolyzer result is a hydrogen-energy advance, and the response adds more XRD, SEM, or TEM figures instead of a benchmark.
Across our International Journal of Hydrogen Energy reviews, more characterization never resolves an advance comment; a comparison against the current best-in-class number does. The fix is concrete: add a benchmark table, report the figure of merit (overpotential at 10 mA/cm-2, system efficiency, storage capacity per unit) against the leading reported systems, and rewrite the reply to point at that table's page and line, not at the novelty of the material.
Missing the durability or cycling data a reviewer explicitly requested. When a reviewer asks for stability over hours or cycles, the losing response defends a single-point peak number, a peak current density or a one-run capacity, as sufficient.
In our International Journal of Hydrogen Energy pre-submission reviews, a performance claim with no chronoamperometric or cycling stability reads as a lab snapshot, not a deployable hydrogen result, and the reviewers treat it as unvalidated no matter how the rebuttal is worded. The fix is to run the durability test the reviewer asked for, report the activity or capacity retained over the run, and cite the new figure by page and line.
A revision that stays incremental optimization. A reviewer flags the manuscript as "yet another catalyst or electrolyzer with a yield number," and the rebuttal re-tunes the same system to report a marginally better figure rather than demonstrating the hydrogen-energy consequence. In a very high-volume journal, a new-material-plus-familiar-method-plus-better-number revision reads as routine optimization and is filtered again.
The manuscripts that clear this comment in our reviews are the ones whose response reframes the contribution around what changes for hydrogen production, storage, or utilization at system scale, supported by the mass and energy balance, not a louder version of the original claim.
Run the benchmark, add the durability data, reframe the advance, document the location, and reconcile across reviewers. That discipline is what separates an International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal that clears one revision round from one that stalls into a second or third. Check your International Journal of Hydrogen Energy point-by-point response for these patterns before you submit.
When to comply and when to push back
Situation | Recommended approach at the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy |
|---|---|
Reviewer questions whether the result is a hydrogen-energy advance | Comply. Add a benchmark against best-in-class; do not add more characterization. |
Reviewer asks for durability or cycling-stability data | Comply. This is the highest-leverage fix; run the chronoamperometric or cycling test. |
Reviewer requests a mass and energy balance | Comply. Add the balance and the system-level efficiency in a table. |
Reviewer requests an experiment that is genuinely out of scope | Push back with a reason, add a sensitivity bound or limitations paragraph, note it as future work. |
The same point is raised by two of the many reviewers | Reconcile to one answer; never give two reviewers two different numbers. |
Reviewer flags scope drift into pure electrochemistry | Reframe the contribution around the hydrogen production, storage, or utilization consequence. |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Hydrogen Energy-targeted resubmissions, 2025-2026 cohort.
How much work an International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rebuttal actually takes
Authors consistently underestimate the new-data effort and overestimate the writing effort. This breakdown is about the rebuttal work you control, not the journal's decision clock; for the end-to-end schedule, see the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy review time guide.
Rebuttal task | Where the effort goes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
Reading and clustering the reviewer reports | Finding the one advance concern behind the comments | A full day, not a skim, because there are many reports |
Running the benchmark and durability tests | The actual bar for a major revision | The bulk of the work, often several weeks of lab time |
Building the mass and energy balance | Showing the hydrogen-energy consequence at system scale | A focused effort once the data exist |
Writing the point-by-point replies | One reply plus a page and line reference per comment | Less than authors fear once the new data exist |
Reconciling overlapping comments across reviewers | Same answer for every reviewer who raised a point | Skipped most often, and at this reviewer count it shows |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Hydrogen Energy resubmissions, 2025-2026 cohort, last updated June 6, 2026.
Common mistakes that fail an International Journal of Hydrogen Energy revision
Before you upload, scan your own rebuttal for the patterns that draw an immediate re-review comment. Each is a specific, checkable thing in your draft, not a vague quality dimension, and each is a common cause of a rejection on revision. Most of the rejection-on-revision outcomes we see trace to one of these four.
- Characterization where a benchmark was requested. A reviewer questioned the advance and the reply only adds more material-characterization figures. This is the most common cause of a third round and of an eventual rejection.
- A peak number with no stability data. A reviewer asked for durability and the response defends a single-point peak current density or capacity.
A hydrogen claim without cycling or chronoamperometric data reads as unvalidated.
- A reply with no location. Any "we have revised the manuscript" with no page and line reads as evasion the moment a reviewer cannot find the change.
- Two answers to one shared point. With many reviewers, the same efficiency or sample-size concern raised by two of them, answered two different ways, signals you did not reconcile the reports.
Honest friction: rejection on revision is real
A major-revision invitation at the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy is not a soft acceptance. The revised manuscript and your point-by-point response go back to the reviewers, and the paper can still end in rejection after re-review if the new data do not resolve the advance concern.
Author reports on SciRev include long revision cycles, one describing a 24.7-week process with 20 reviewer reports that still ended in rejection, which tells you the journal does not rubber-stamp revisions even after extensive engagement.
Most rejection-on-revision outcomes trace to one cause: the author answered a request for benchmark or durability data with prose or more characterization. The second most common is an inconsistent answer to a point raised by more than one reviewer.
Think twice before you resubmit if any of these are true. The response uses generic "we have addressed this" language with no page or line numbers. A reviewer asked for a benchmark or durability run and you answered with more characterization or text. The same comment from two reviewers got two different answers.
The contribution is genuinely incremental optimization rather than a hydrogen-energy advance, in which case a polished rebuttal will not save it and a scope redirect to a better-matched journal may serve you better. Fixing these before resubmission is what keeps a second round from becoming a rejection.
How does this guide go beyond the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy author guidelines?
The official guide for authors tells you to submit a point-by-point response and a revised manuscript through Editorial Manager. It does not tell you that the journal assigns an unusually high number of reviewers per round, that the hydrogen-energy advance bar carries into revision, that an advance challenge is answered with a benchmark rather than more characterization, or that a deployable claim needs durability data on the published electrocatalyst-benchmarking timescale.
Those facts change how you write every technical reply. The patterns above come from our pre-submission reviews of hydrogen-energy manuscripts, and they are testable against your own draft response today, not theoretical concerns.
- Manusights pre-submission reviews of International Journal of Hydrogen Energy-targeted manuscripts (2025-2026 cohort)
Frequently asked questions
Open with a short editor letter that thanks the reviewers, summarizes the major changes, and defines the page-line convention. Then answer each reviewer comment in order, quote the comment, end every reply with exact page and line references, and upload the response document with the revised manuscript through Editorial Manager.
The hydrogen-energy advance bar carries straight into revision. Reviewers want a benchmark against the current best-in-class result, durability or cycling-stability data rather than a single-point peak number, and a clear mass and energy balance. A rebuttal that answers a novelty challenge with more characterization, or defends a peak performance number without stability data, is the most common reason a paper goes a second round or is rejected on revision.
Usually yes for the technical points. When a reviewer questions whether the result is a hydrogen-energy advance, adding text or extra characterization figures rarely moves the decision; adding the benchmark comparison and the durability run does. SciRev author reports put the first review round at roughly 2.0 months and the average number of rounds at about 2.0, so plan for the new data a major revision actually requires.
Yes. A major-revision invitation is not an acceptance. The revised manuscript and your response go back to the reviewers, and author reports include long revision cycles that still ended in rejection. Most rejection-on-revision outcomes trace to one cause: the author answered a request for a benchmark or durability data with prose or more characterization. If the contribution is genuinely incremental optimization, a polished rebuttal will not save it.
Through Elsevier Editorial Manager at the official submission portal Submit the revised manuscript, a clean and a marked-up version where requested, and a separate point-by-point response document. State your page and line convention once at the top of that document, and make sure every reference resolves against the file the reviewer will actually open, because mismatched line numbers are a frequent cause of an avoidable extra round.
Sources
- International Journal of Hydrogen Energy guide for authors (Elsevier, accessed June 2026)
- International Journal of Hydrogen Energy journal page (Elsevier insights, scope and metrics, accessed June 2026)
- Reviews for the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, SciRev (first round, reviewer count, revision rounds, accessed June 2026)
- Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers (William Stafford Noble, PLOS Computational Biology, 2017)
- How to respond to reviewers (Nature Computational Science editorial, 2025)
- A guide to electrocatalyst stability (durability and benchmarking norms, ACS Energy Letters, accessed June 2026)
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