Open access: open calls for papers

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service and the Editorial Office informed by email. Please state the code “YABGHydr23” in the “Comments to the Editor” submission question when you submit your manuscript, to indicate that this is a submission for the themed collection. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed. All manuscripts will be subject to the journal's usual peer review process. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online and they will be published in a regular issue of Energy Advances.

What would you like to know about this journal?

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service and the Editorial Office informed by email. Please state the code “YAHEEMat23” in the “Comments to the Editor” submission question when you submit your manuscript, to indicate that this is a submission for the themed collection. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed. All manuscripts will be subject to the journal's usual peer review process. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online, and they will be published in a regular issue of Energy Advances.

What would you like to know about this journal?

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service and the Editorial Office informed by email. Please state the code “YAFlowEn23” in the “Comments to the Editor” submission question when you submit your manuscript, to indicate that this is a submission for the themed collection. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed. All manuscripts will be subject to the journal's usual peer review process. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online and they will be published in a regular issue of Energy Advances.

What would you like to know about this journal?

We welcome contributions on hydrogen and fuel cells in the form of Research papers, Communications, Reviews and Perspectives in the following but not limited to the categories:

• Hydrogen storage materials
• Hydrogen production and generation
• Fuel cell materials from membranes to electrodes
• Fuel cell catalysts

The rapid development of research in biomaterials in recent years can be noticed. On the other side, even obtaining a new or improved biomaterial, or a novel fabrication method, is a difficult task, and as a rule, such materials must be created and possess specific properties. The bulk properties determine some mechanical and some physical properties, but also an interface between a biomaterial and a human environment, bones, and tissue, decides on biocompatibility, adhesion between an implant and a tissue, surface hardness, and Young`s modulus, and most importantly, bioactivity and cytotoxicity. Therefore, the role of the surface is the most important among all considered features of the biomaterial.

This themed collection in RSC Advances aims to demonstrate the most recent advances in nano and micro-scale modifications of biomaterials. Such surface treatments can be performed by several techniques such as fine polishing, acidic and alkaline etching, anodic and micro-arc oxidation, and ion bombardment of the surface outer layer, and as numerous ceramic, polymer, metallic, and in particular composite coatings. Each of them can possess different microstructure, thickness, adhesion, wettability, corrosion behaviour, bioactivity, cytotoxicity, and antibacterial efficiency, depending on process parameters. It is already proven that the most important features are microstructure and topography, in nano and micro dimensions, and chemical and phase compositions of the surface layer and deposits. Therefore, research progress in this specific field can be highly diverse, as demonstrated by recent literature. In this special issue, the emphasis is placed on the demonstration of links between nano and micro-scale surface modifications, and their effects on mechanical, chemical, physical, and biological properties.

How to submit:

Both Papers and Review articles will be considered for this issue. All submissions will be subject to an initial assessment by Associate Editors and, if suitable for the journal, they will be subject to rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of RSC Advances.

Our APC is among the lowest in the industry and there are no submission charges. Discounts and waivers are offered to authors from developing countries.

If you would like to submit to this issue the manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system anytime before the submission deadline of 15 June 2023. During submission, authors will be asked if they are submitting for a themed collection and should include the name of the themed collection. If you would like to submit but require additional time to prepare your article, please do let us know by contacting the journal.

It is now clear that developing low-carbon economy is an essential prerequisite to sustainability. Despite the great desire for the replacement of fossil fuels with hydrogen, realisation of hydrogen economy continues to be a grand challenge. Currently, there exists a wide range of technologies for the production, storage and utilisation of hydrogen. Nevertheless, hydrogen-based integrated energy systems that are economically viable and environmentally friendly have not been developed yet.

This themed collection has been motivated the new wave of research on the design, analysis, and assessment of future hydrogen energy systems. Thermodynamic, technoeconomic and environmental analyses are central to such efforts to complement elements of socioeconomics and policy making.

The purpose of this collection is to bring together the latest research findings of the international, multidisciplinary community of hydrogen energy on the system-level analyses of hydrogen technologies. In particular, contributions are sought in the following fields:

• Energy, exergy, economic, and environmental analysis of hydrogen systems.
• Technoeconomic, exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental investigations of hydrogen production, storage and utilisation.
• Applications of machine learning and data-centric techniques to the analysis of hydrogen energy systems.
• Multi-objective optimisation of hydrogen energy systems using conventional and emerging techniques.
• Integration and hybridisation of hydrogen energy systems with other sustainable energy systems.

Please make sure that your submission provides an insight that advances the chemistry field or is of interest to the chemistry community.

About this call:

Expanding and going beyond the field of nanotechnology, a new concept of nanoarchitectonics has been proposed. Nanoarchitectonics aims to construct materials with precise structures that achieve high performance from nanoscale units such as atoms, molecules, and nanomaterials. Beyond the well-known strategies of self-assembly and related strategies, nanoarchitectonics aims to construct material structures containing more asymmetric and hierarchical motifs from multiple components. Nanoarchitectonics bridges the missing link between nanotechnology and materials science. The impact of nanoarchitectonics goes beyond fabricating such structures to developing nanostructured materials useful for sensing, catalysis, energy, environmental, and biomedical applications.

Such attempts have in fact been widely studied but should be reconstructed under the name of nanoarchitectonics as a link between nanotechnology and materials science. This themed collection will encompass the development of various functions enabled by this bottom-up approach to structure development. Examples of possible targets include:

1. Supramolecular assemblies and self-assemblies
2. Coordination nanostructures such as MOFs
3. Hybrids, composites, and blends that exhibit nanostructures and functions
4. Various other functional materials that include nanostructures
5. Sensing, catalytic, energy, environmental, biomedical and other applications

This themed collection should not only describe conventional approaches but also how the research relates to nanoarchitectonics.

How to submit:

Both Papers and Review articles will be considered for this issue. All submissions will be subject to an initial assessment by Associate Editors and, if suitable for the journal, they will be subject to rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of RSC Advances.

Our APC is among the lowest in the industry and there are no submission charges. Discounts and waivers are offered to authors from developing countries.

If you would like to submit to this issue the manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system anytime before the submission deadline of 30 July 2023. During submission, authors will be asked if they are submitting for a themed collection and should include the name of the themed collection. If you would like to submit but require additional time to prepare your article, please do let us know by contacting the journal.

In the present era, conventional wastewater treatment is facing the challenge of low pre and post treatment efficiency and hence it can be controlled with electrochemical based reactors. This themed collection aims to emphasise understanding the basics of electrochemistry and the way forward towards its application in environmental science and environmental bioremediation technology. It will include basics of environmental electrochemistry, redox reactions for contaminant removal and success stories of various electrochemistry-based techniques with microbial approach in the direction of practical wastewater degradation. With this collection we aim to stimulate new directions for environmental scientists and policymakers to work on advanced electrochemistry-based treatment systems and electrochemical sensor applications by overcoming the existing limitations. This collection will offer the way forward for electrochemically controlled bioreactors for refractory pollutant removal and monitoring purposes. Several successive technologies are key indicators for addressing the various aspects of environmental electrochemistry may be covered.

Topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Advancement in bio electrochemical system for wastewater treatment and resource recovery
• Role of electrochemistry and electrochemical techniques for environmental bioremediation 
• Electrochemical redox reactions for contaminant removal and valuable resource recovery from wastewater
• Advances in microbial electrochemical technology
• Advances of pilot scale electrochemical system for industrial wastewater treatment
• Decomposition and transformation of refractory pollutants in bio electrochemical systems
• The reaction mechanisms at the electrode-electrolyte interface
• Developing and applying electrochemical sensors in treating industrial wastewater

Please make sure that your submission provides an insight that advances the chemistry field or is of interest to the chemistry community.

This cross-journal themed collection on Sustainable Composites will bring together articles* tackling the sustainability of the entire composite lifecycle, including new composite feedstocks, low-energy manufacturing, design for end-of-life, in-use benefits, extended composite lifetime and repair, material recovery and recycling. Contributions should clearly address the sustainability aspects associated with the chosen approach.

Topics include:

• Sustainable composite materials: These might include, but are not limited to bio-derived and low-carbon pathways to carbon fibre and composite resins (both drop-in and new resins); natural fibres (e.g., hemp, bamboo, and flax); new chemistries or new ways to existing chemistries; modelling for material prediction;
• Low-energy manufacturing: Efficient manufacturing processes, covering both resource and energy efficiency, e.g., UV radiation, fast curing resins, additives for low temperature curing, additive manufacturing (3D printing composites);
• Design for end of life: recyclable materials e.g., triggered degradation of thermosets, reversible adhesives, vitrimers; application of reactive modelling and machine learning.
• Enhanced composite lifetime: Self-healing technologies for composite repair e.g., vitrimers; underpinning tools e.g., accelerated testing of polymers and composites, detecting material degradation e.g., microscopy, FTIR; secondary composite applications; repair strategies; and the potential for adoption of imbedded sensor technology.
• Composite recovery and recycling: Strategies for the potential combination of chemical, biochemical and physical recycling technologies for key resin types to deliver both recycled input materials and structural building blocks as second-life materials , analytical techniques to identify composites from waste streams e.g., FTIR and laser induced breakdown spectroscopy, digital labels such as QR codes and RFID tags;
• Composite additives: e.g., adhesives, conductors, core, curing agents (including hardeners and catalysts), sizing, toughening agents, flame retardants and UV stabilisers; nanocomposites as an additive in FRP providing thermal, electrical and/or mechanical properties; additives for enhancing performance e.g., toughening agents, UV absorbers/stabilisers, sizing (coating applied to surface of fibres);
• Sustainable composite applications: These might include, but are not limited to e.g., wind turbine blades, ship hulls, hydrogen storage tanks, airplanes, and automotive parts;
• Whole system evaluation: LCA, LCE, TEA, social-economic analysis across whole composite cycle; opportunities to explore concept of ‘sustainability in use’
• Regulatory and Policy: REACH, material passporting, approval for new materials, verification, testing, adoption of standards to cover use of second-life materials

Please make sure that your submission provides an insight that advances the chemistry field or is of interest to the chemistry community.

During the last decade, 2D materials have gained tremendous attention in the scientific community due to their structural and physiochemical properties, which make them applicable in various fields of fundamental and applied research. Inspired and boosted by the performance of graphene and its derivates as well as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), with their most prominent members being MoS2 and WS2, significant progress has been made towards the development of new 2D nanomaterials.

In this regard, advanced synthesis routes, as well as an in-depth understanding of the structure-property-performance relationship, are currently being explored for silicenes, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), 2D black phosphorus, halide structures, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent-organic frameworks (COFs), MXenes and MBenes. Their high surface-to-volume ratios coupled with controllable electrical and thermal conductivity, and excellent mechanical properties have made 2D nanomaterials particularly interesting for energy storage/harvesting and supercapacitors, (photo)-catalysis, water purification/desalination, wearable electronics, biomedicine, tribology, and much more. 

This multidisciplinary-themed collection provides the opportunity to share the latest findings related to applied research involving 2D materials with the research community.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• New synthesis approaches for 2D materials,
• Chemical functionalization of 2D materials,
• Fabrication of nanocomposites and their functionalization,
• Advanced, high-resolution materials characterization (chemical and structural),
• Unique physical and chemical properties of 2D materials,
• Experimental and computational studies related to the use of 2D materials in energy storage/harvesting, (photo)-catalysis, water purification/desalination, wearable electronics, and tribology, among others,
• Biomedical applications of 2D materials such as drug delivery, gene therapy, regenerative medicine, oncology, and
• Innovative biosensors based on the 2D materials physical/chemical features.

We welcome your submission to the series.

How to submit:

Both papers and review articles will be considered for this themed collection. All submissions will be subject to an initial assessment by Associate Editors and, if suitable for the journal, they will be subject to rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of RSC Advances.

We are proud to be an affordable gold open access journal. Submissions to RSC Advances will be published open access and the appropriate article processing charge (APC) will apply. RSC Advances’ article processing charge (APC) is among the lowest in chemistry and waivers are also available for authors who meet the eligibility criteria outlined here.

If you would like to submit to this themed collection the manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system any time before the submission deadline of 31 October 2023. During submission, authors will be asked if they are submitting for a themed collection and should include the name of the themed collection. If you would like to submit but require additional time to prepare your article, please do let us know by contacting the journal.

In the past three decades, the intense research activity on carbon nanotubes has unveiled fundamental phenomena and enabled novel applications in nanoelectronics, gas sensing, photodetection, telecommunication, quantum information, material engineering, nanomechanics, nanofluidics, nanomedicine, pharmacology, food industry, catalysis, energy science, etc.

The great success of carbon nanotubes has stimulated research towards the fabrication of nanotubes from other materials. Along this line, the family of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has offered new opportunities. Indeed, nanotubes of MoS2, WS2, etc. have been already synthesized and studied. Other nanotubes, such as black phosphorus ones, have been theoretically predicted but not experimentally established.

New approaches to the synthesis and characterization of nanotubes are continuously developed and new applications are also proposed.

Papers should provide an insight that advances the chemistry field. Papers that contain little or no chemistry and are not considered to be of interest or relevance to the chemistry community are not within the scope of the journal. The criteria for publication are that the work must be high quality, well conducted and advance the development of the field. Articles submitted to the journal are evaluated by our international team of associate editors and reviewers for the overall quality and accuracy of the science presented.

To be eligible researchers should be roughly within 7 years of starting their first independent research position. Career breaks will be taken into consideration (for example, parental or medical leave).

How to submit

Both Papers and Review articles will be considered for this issue. All submissions will be subject to an initial assessment by Associate Editors and, if suitable for the journal, they will be subject to rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of RSC Advances.

Our APC is among the lowest in the industry and there are no submission charges. Discounts and waivers are offered to authors from developing countries.

If you would like to submit to this issue please notify the Editorial Office. The manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system anytime.

Contributions are welcome which investigate the fundamental inorganic chemistry of life and/or use inorganic chemistry for medicine. New chemical methods for sensing and imaging, metalloproteomics, metal-based therapeutics and diagnostics, as well as structural and functional consequences of novel protein and nucleic acid metallobiochemistry in vitro and in living systems, are welcome for this themed collection on emerging topics in the chemical biology of metals research.

Ideally, computational work should be experimentally validated wherever possible. For articles to be accepted into the collection, the applications and relevance to chemical biology must be clear.

Authors are welcome to submit original research in the form of a Communication or Full Paper. The manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system.

All manuscripts will be subject to the usual initial assessment and peer review processes as necessary, and inclusion in the Collection will be at the discretion of the Guest Editors. Please indicate in your submission that you are submitting to this Collection and inform the Editorial Office by email.

Following our peer-review process, we will publish accepted articles online in a citeable form as soon as they are ready, with compilation and promotion of the complete collection in mid-2023.

As a gold open access journal, there are no barriers to accessing content and your research article will reach an international audience.

RSC Chemical Biology is now indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), PubMed Central, Scopus and Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index.

About this journal:

Led by Hiroaki Suga (University of Tokyo), RSC Chemical Biology is dedicated to publishing and disseminating the most exceptionally significant, breakthrough findings of interest to the chemical biology community. All submissions are handled by our experienced and internationally recognised Associate Editors. For more information on the journal, please visit the journal homepage.

Ideally, computational work should be experimentally validated wherever possible. For articles to be accepted into the collection, the applications and relevance to chemical biology must be clear.

Authors are welcome to submit original research in the form of a Communication or Full Paper. The manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system.

All manuscripts will be subject to the usual initial assessment and peer review processes as necessary, and inclusion in the Collection will be at the discretion of the Guest Editors. Please indicate in your submission that you are submitting to this Collection and inform the Editorial Office by email.

Following our peer-review process, we will publish accepted articles online in a citeable form as soon as they are ready, with compilation and promotion of the complete collection in late 2023.

As a gold open access journal, there are no barriers to accessing content and your research article will reach an international audience.

RSC Chemical Biology is now indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), PubMed Central, Scopus and Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index.

About this journal:

Led by Hiroaki Suga (University of Tokyo), RSC Chemical Biology is dedicated to publishing and disseminating the most exceptionally significant, breakthrough findings of interest to the chemical biology community. All submissions are handled by our experienced and internationally recognised Associate Editors. For more information on the journal, please visit the journal homepage.

Ideally, computational work should be experimentally validated wherever possible. For articles to be accepted into the collection, the applications and relevance to chemical biology must be clear.

Authors are welcome to submit original research in the form of a Communication or Full Paper. The manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system.

All manuscripts will be subject to the usual initial assessment and peer review processes as necessary, and inclusion in the Collection will be at the discretion of the Guest Editors. Please indicate in your submission that you are submitting to this Collection and inform the Editorial Office by email.

Following our peer-review process, we will publish accepted articles online in a citeable form as soon as they are ready, with compilation and promotion of the complete collection in late 2023.

As a gold open access journal, there are no barriers to accessing content and your research article will reach an international audience.

RSC Chemical Biology is now indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), PubMed Central, Scopus and Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index.

About this journal:

Led by Hiroaki Suga (University of Tokyo), RSC Chemical Biology is dedicated to publishing and disseminating the most exceptionally significant, breakthrough findings of interest to the chemical biology community. All submissions are handled by our experienced and internationally recognised Associate Editors. For more information on the journal, please visit the journal homepage.