Dear Dr. Dhobi,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 27 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Narayanamoorthy Bhuvanendran, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The paper concludes that external temperature negatively affects PEMFC output due to increased particle resistance and entropy, emphasizing the need for precise thermal management to improve fuel cell efficiency. However�the experimental setup is too simple. It is recommended to upgrade the experimental conditions to ensure the authenticity of the experiment.

Reviewer #2: This is a statistical review on a Research Article manuscript for PLOS ONE entitled "Temperature Dependence Laser-Assist Scattering and Its Impact on Efficiency on with PEMFC" (PONE-D-25-41737).

This paper is primarily a theoretical modeling and descriptive experimental study rather than one based on inferential statistics. The authors develop a theoretical model and then conduct a single prototype experiment to observe a phenomenon. As a result, it lacks formal statistical components.

The statistical methods used are limited to descriptive statistics.

There are no statistical experimental design considerations, no statistical modeling (or use of statistical models) and no inference (such as tests of statistical hypotheses).

The study uses a simple, non-replicated prototype design. A single PEMFC prototype was built and tested. There is no statistical sampling. The "sample" is a single, custom-fabricated device. The paper does not mention any replication of the experiment.

From the statistics standpoint, the paper fails to deliver on the following important rubric of PLOS ONE:

"3. Experiments, statistics, and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail."

The above evaluation considers only statistical aspects of the paper as part of the requested statistical review of the manuscript. It does not reflect on the overall scientific merits of the presented research.

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what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures 

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation. 

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Temperature Dependence Laser-Assist Scattering and Its Impact on Efficiency of  PEMFC

PONE-D-25-41737R1

Dear Dr. Saddam Husain Dhobi,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter, and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager®  and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support .

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Narayanamoorthy Bhuvanendran, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy

Reviewer #1: No

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