--- name: chemical-engineering-journal description: Use when targeting Chemical Engineering Journal or deciding whether an applied chemical-engineering / functional-materials manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the applied-advance-with-mechanism bar, performance and benchmarking rigor, house style, the applied-vs-fundamentals routing, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Chemical Engineering Journal (chemical-engineering-journal) ## Journal positioning Chemical Engineering Journal (Elsevier) is a broad, high-volume venue for chemical engineering with a strong **applied and functional-materials emphasis**: reaction engineering and catalysis for environmental and energy applications, adsorption and separation, functional materials engineered for chemical-engineering processes, and water/energy treatment and conversion. Where AIChE Journal rewards the transferable principle, this journal rewards a demonstrated, well-characterized advance on a real process problem — provided the work still explains *why* it works, not only *that* it works. Papers that report a new material and a property number with no mechanistic or process insight, or that lack credible benchmarking, are a weak fit. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live Chemical Engineering Journal Guide for Authors on the Elsevier site. ## When to trigger - The author names Chemical Engineering Journal for an applied catalysis, adsorption, separation, functional-materials, or water/energy-process manuscript. - A paper must be re-framed from "we synthesized a material" into an application-with-mechanism story tied to a chemical-engineering process. - The author is choosing between this journal's applied slant and AIChE Journal's fundamentals bar, or between it and a pure-materials venue. - The author needs the journal's performance-and-benchmarking rigor bar and desk-reject heuristics. ## Scope & topic fit - Catalysis and reaction engineering for environmental and energy uses: pollutant degradation, CO2 conversion, photo/electro/thermal catalysis with process relevance. - Adsorption and separation: sorbents, ion exchange, and separation processes with capacity, kinetics, selectivity, and regeneration data. - Functional materials engineered for a chemical-engineering function (membranes, catalysts, sorbents, electrodes) where the process performance is central. - Water and wastewater treatment: advanced oxidation, membrane and hybrid processes, resource recovery, with mechanism and performance under realistic conditions. - Energy-related processes: conversion, storage materials in a process context, and energy-efficient separations where the chemical-engineering advance is clear. - Process and reactor engineering for the above, including intensification and scale considerations. ## Method & evidence bar - The central claim is a **demonstrated applied advance with mechanism**: a material or process that performs better, with direct evidence for *why* (active site, transport, structure–performance link), not a property table alone. - Performance must be quantified and benchmarked against credible state-of-the-art and measured under realistic, clearly stated conditions (concentration ranges, matrices, cycling, stability). - Mechanism claims need direct evidence (operando/in-situ characterization, kinetic analysis, controlled variation), not morphology-property correlation alone. - Stability, reusability, and applicability under non-idealized conditions are expected for any application claim; single-cycle ideal-solution results are weak. - Characterization must be appropriate and statistically representative; report conditions, controls, and reproducibility. ## Structure & house style - Standard research-article structure (introduction, materials/methods, results, discussion); the journal also uses highlights and a graphical abstract — re-check current article types and requirements on the live guide. - The introduction frames the process/application gap and the mechanistic question; the discussion ties structure or process variables to the measured performance. - Figures are load-bearing: performance curves with benchmarks and error bars, mechanism schematics, and characterization supporting the active-site/transport claim. - Supporting information carries full synthesis, extended characterization, and stability/recyclability data; main-text figures must stand alone for the central claim. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the Elsevier anchors, then cite the current Chemical Engineering Journal Guide for Authors page you checked. - Search the live site for "Chemical Engineering Journal guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier/Editorial Manager version. - Re-check article types, highlights and graphical-abstract requirements, and length/figure expectations. - Confirm data-availability and any deposition/sharing requirements for datasets. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution (CRediT), and AI-use disclosure requirements. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The contribution is an applied advance with direct mechanistic evidence, not a new material plus a property number. - [ ] Performance is benchmarked against credible state-of-the-art under realistic, clearly stated conditions. - [ ] Mechanism is supported by operando/in-situ or kinetic evidence, not morphology-property correlation alone. - [ ] Stability, reusability, and non-idealized-condition performance are reported for application claims. - [ ] Characterization is appropriate, controlled, and statistically representative. - [ ] Highlights and graphical abstract represent the actual process advance. ## Common desk-reject triggers - "New material, better number" with no mechanism and no process relevance. - Performance claims without credible benchmarking or measured only under idealized lab conditions. - Adsorption/catalysis studies missing stability, regeneration, or realistic-matrix data. - Mechanism asserted from morphology alone, with no operando/in-situ or kinetic support. - Pure-chemistry or pure-materials paper with chemical-engineering process relevance only as a label. - Incremental variant of a known sorbent/catalyst with marginal improvement and no new insight. ## Re-routing decision - Fundamental, generalizable transport/thermo/reaction-engineering science → `aiche-journal`. - Membrane materials and transport mechanism as the core → `journal-of-membrane-science`. - Systems-level energy conversion / techno-economic scope → `applied-energy`. - Electrode/electrolyte materials for batteries as the core → `energy-storage-materials`. - Environmental-process work with environmental-science framing → `environmental-science-and-technology`. - Catalysis as a chemistry/mechanism advance over process engineering → `nature-catalysis`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Chemical Engineering Journal [Topic tags] <2–3 closest applied-CE subtopics> [Applied advance] [Mechanism] [Benchmarking] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```