Peer Review Policy

All submissions to ‌Chemical Technology and Engineering Application (CTEA)‌ undergo a rigorous peer-review process managed through the ‌Editorial Manager‌ system. The process is designed to ensure scientific validity, industrial relevance, and alignment with COPE guidelines. Key steps include:

‌1. Initial Submission‌

Authors submit manuscripts to the ‌Editor-in-Chief (EIC)‌. Submissions must include:

  • Full experimental protocols (e.g., reaction conditions, equipment specifications).
  • Declarations of conflicts of interest (e.g., industry funding, patent affiliations).
  • Compliance with safety standards for hazardous materials or high-risk processes.

‌2. Associate Editor Assignment‌

  • The EIC assigns an ‌Associate Editor (AE)‌ based on the manuscript’s technical focus (e.g., catalysis, process engineering, materials synthesis).
  • If the EIC has conflicts of interest (e.g., co-authorship in the past 3 years), a senior AE assumes oversight.

‌3. Referee Selection‌

  • The AE recommends ‌3–5 referees‌ with expertise in the manuscript’s domain (e.g., computational fluid dynamics, polymer engineering).
  • Referees must:
    • Have no institutional or collaborative ties to authors within the past 5 years.
    • Demonstrate industry experience (e.g., prior work with Dow, BASF, or equivalent).
  • Review deadlines are ‌4–8 weeks‌, with extensions granted for complex technical validations (e.g., Aspen Plus model verification).

‌4. Technical Review‌

Referees evaluate:

  • ‌Experimental reproducibility‌: Data must align with industrial standards (e.g., ±5% error tolerance for yield calculations).
  • ‌Safety protocols‌: Validation of hazardous process controls (e.g., pressure reactor safety certifications).
  • ‌Industrial applicability‌: Cost-benefit analyses for scaling up lab-scale processes.
  • The AE synthesizes referee reports and proposes a decision to the EIC.

‌5. Editorial Decision‌

The EIC issues a final decision based on referee consensus:

  • ‌Accept‌: Directly forwarded to production.
  • ‌Minor Revisions‌: Authors address technical clarifications (e.g., NMR peak assignments) within ‌2 weeks‌.
  • ‌Major Revisions‌: Resubmission triggers re-evaluation by original referees, focusing on revised datasets or computational models.
  • ‌Reject‌: Authors may appeal with new data or resubmit after substantial methodological improvements.

‌6. Post-Review Actions‌

  • ‌Accepted manuscripts‌: Published with DOI and indexed in engineering databases (e.g., Ei Compendex, CAS).
  • ‌Revisions‌: Revised submissions must include a point-by-point response to referee comments and updated supplementary materials (e.g., MATLAB code, safety audit reports).
  • ‌Retractions‌: Proven violations of ethics (e.g., data fabrication) result in immediate retraction with public notice.

By adhering to this process, CTEA ensures the publication of innovative, ethical, and industrially actionable research in materials engineering. For queries, contact the editorial office at ‌ctea@gospub.com.