Energy & Environmental Science

Communications

These contain either a complete study or a preliminary report, but in either case must contain original and highly significant work whose interest to the Energy & Environmental Science readership and high novelty warrants rapid publication. Authors should supply with their submission a justification of why the work merits urgent publication as a Communication. Referees will be asked to judge the work on these grounds.

Communications are given high visibility within the journal as they are published at the front of an issue. Communications will not normally exceed the length of four printed journal pages; however, exceptions may be made at the editor's discretion. Full papers based on Communications are encouraged provided that they represent a substantial extension of the original material.

Full papers

Full papers contain original scientific work that has not been published previously. Full papers based on Communications are encouraged provided that they represent a substantial extension of the original material. There are no restrictions on the length of a paper. Authors should include a brief discussion in the Introduction that sets the context for the novel work and gives their motivation for carrying out the study.

Reviews, Perspectives & Minireviews

These are normally commissioned by the editorial board and editorial office, although suggestions from readers for topics and authors of reviews are most welcome and should be directed to the editor.

Reviews, Perspectives and Minireviews must be high quality, authoritative, state-of-the-art accounts of the selected research field. They should be timely and add to the existing literature, rather than duplicate existing articles, and should be of general interest to the journal's wide readership.

All Reviews, Perspectives and Minireviews undergo a rigorous and full peer review procedure, in the same way as regular research papers. 

Review articles report a detailed, balanced and authoritative current account of the selected research field. Review articles normally comprise 10,000 or more words of text, together with supporting figures and tables.

Perspectives present an authoritative state-of-the-art account of a research field. A Perspective may take the form of a personal account of research, or a critical analysis of a topic of current interest. In either form, some new unpublished research may be included. Perspectives normally comprise 5,000 to 10,000 words of text, together with supporting figures and tables.

Minireviews are shorter, more focused accounts of important new fields of research. They are typically up to 3,000 words in length.

Opinions

Opinions are typically up to 2,000 words in length and provide a personal, often speculative, viewpoint or hypothesis on a topic of current interest to the scientific community. They may concern a recent publication in the journal (in which case the author(s) concerned will be given the opportunity to respond) or discuss any current hot topic from the authors point of view; provided that they are not defamatory to the work of others they can be controversial and stimulate counter-opinion. They can include a short biography of the author(s).

Although – by their nature – Opinion articles may be more speculative than traditional papers, for publication in Energy & Environmental Science Opinions must contain rigorous, evidence-backed scientific justification, referenced where possible, and bring significant and valuable insights to the field.

Opinions on set topics may be invited by the editorial office, but unsolicited pieces in response to papers already published are encouraged to promote scientific discussion.

Analysis articles

The purpose of Analysis articles is to quantitatively analyse technologies and technological systems.

Analysis articles provide an in-depth examination of energy and environmental technologies, strategies, policies, and overarching conceptual frameworks that will be of interest to the journal's wide and global readership. They should present new methods and data and fresh insights, and should be written for a scientifically literate audience. They must demonstrate scholarly rigor and tightness of presentation comparable to articles in mainstream science.

An Analysis article should not simply be a repository of data with superficial or speculative commentary. Instead, through an Analysis article a reader of Energy & Environmental Science should learn something new about methods or data, or will be educated about an important new technology or technological strategy, or will see a policy argument in a fresh light.

Authors of potential Analysis articles are encouraged to contact the editorial office, to discuss the scope and suitability of their article. All Analysis submissions will be subject to rigorous peer review in the normal way.

Comments

Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in Energy & Environmental Science.

For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication. 

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Authors and referees should note the following guidelines for articles reporting the efficiency of solar conversion devices. Authors should ensure the following information is provided in the main manuscript or supplementary information as appropriate.

Important data, in particular JV and EQE of solar cells, should be uploaded in machine readable format including a header with units.

A full, conventional error analysis should be carried out and reported. This should consist of both random and systematic/bias analyses of values to support the main claims presented in the article, and information on how the error analysis was carried out. In particular, researchers should comment on the type and number of devices and whether all devices used to compile the statistics were made in one run (e.g. batch) or were collected from several independent processing campaigns.

Efficiencies should be reported to an appropriate number of significant figures, along with a standard deviation. This also includes presenting error bars on graphs.

A sufficient number of samples should be tested, and a sufficient number of trials performed.

The 1 Sun AM 1.5G reference spectrum should be used as standard for testing power conversion efficiency and a justification provided where this is not used.

Full experimental conditions under which the efficiency is measured should be declared. Special attention should be paid to documenting the active area of the device, the calibration protocol and properties of the illumination including spectral irradiance and intensity. This may also include as appropriate, but is not limited to, air temperature, use of a glove box, properties and characteristics of the test cell and standardized cell used for calibration, including dimensions and spatial non-uniformity, light source, bias, duration, and calibration and measurement protocols. Information on the use of masks and their area should be provided. Ideally, measurements should be taken ‘masked’ where the mask should be about 10% smaller than the active area.

Independent certification of the photovoltaic performance of the device being reported is strongly encouraged when the main claims rely on the absolute efficiency value being reported. A full certified report should include details of what reference cell was used to calibrate the spectrometer and consideration of spectral mismatch calculation.

If incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE), also referred to as external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements are performed, the results should be integrated to a resulting short circuit current that can be compared with 1 Sun AM 1.5G power conversion efficiency data. The details of how this calculation is done and any correction factors should be clearly defined, as well as whether it was measured with background illumination. We also encourage using the same procedure with other spectra, such as LED spectra for indoor lighting.

If hysteresis is observed, details on the timescale and stability of the efficiency should be provided. For cells where hysteresis is possible (such as metal-halide perovskites), forward and reverse scan JV data should be reported and averages between forward and reverse efficiencies should be quoted in the text. At no point should the higher of the two values be mentioned in isolation. The scan speed must be mentioned. Measurements of current-voltage curves at different scan speeds are encouraged. In the case where the main claims rely on absolute efficiency, then maximum power point tracking data over typically 5 minutes should be provided for determination of the stabilized efficiency, ideally from time zero on to see whether there are transient effects.

If the calibration cell is given, the last date for the calibration (and by whom) should be listed as well.

Authors and referees should note the following guidelines for articles reporting electrochemical data and setup of batteries. Authors should ensure the following information is provided in the main manuscript or supplementary information as appropriate.

The setup used for electrochemical testing (full or half cells, reference electrode [if used], testing temperature, etc.) must be clearly specified in the Experimental Information.

When reporting electrochemical performance data, the authors must clearly state on how many experimental runs these data are based off (one-time measurement? n-time measurement?). The electrochemical performance value calculations must be clearly explained (including information on using charging or discharging values). Thereby, all electrochemical data must be reported to an appropriate number of significant figures, along with standard deviation and error bars on graphs.

When reporting electrode performance values, the thickness of the electrode and the mass percentage of all electrode components (active material, additive, binder, etc.), the total mass of the electrode, and the geometric area of the electrode must be provided.

When reporting device-level performance values, the mass percentage of all battery components (active material, additive, binder, casing, current collector, electrolyte, separator, etc.), the total mass of the battery, and the geometric area of the electrode must be reported.

The mass percent and theoretical capacity of the active material should be provided if the theoretical capacity of the studied material is known. The theoretical capacity should be used to calculate C-rate. Alternatively, rigorous use of A g-1 is recommended.

Pre-cycling and/or first cycle data should be reported.

Calculations of battery capacity must report the capacity obtained (in mAh g-1; if appropriate, volumetric values can be added in the unit of mAh cm-3) with the cycling rate and at what cycle number this capacity was obtained clearly stated. Average capacities for ≥3 cells with standard deviation are preferred.