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Research Papers

How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Last Updated: May 26, 2024 Fact Checked

Choosing a Journal

Writing the research paper, editing & revising your paper, submitting your paper, navigating the peer review process, research paper help.

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Cheyenne Main . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 700,623 times.

Publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal allows you to network with other scholars, get your name and work into circulation, and further refine your ideas and research. Before submitting your paper, make sure it reflects all the work you’ve done and have several people read over it and make comments. Keep reading to learn how you can choose a journal, prepare your work for publication, submit it, and revise it after you get a response back.

Things You Should Know

Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in and choose one that best aligns with your topic and your desired audience.
Prepare your manuscript using the journal’s requirements and ask at least 2 professors or supervisors to review your paper.
Write a cover letter that “sells” your manuscript, says how your research adds to your field and explains why you chose the specific journal you’re submitting to.

Step 1 Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in.

Ask your professors or supervisors for well-respected journals that they’ve had good experiences publishing with and that they read regularly.
Many journals also only accept specific formats, so by choosing a journal before you start, you can write your article to their specifications and increase your chances of being accepted.
If you’ve already written a paper you’d like to publish, consider whether your research directly relates to a hot topic or area of research in the journals you’re looking into.

Step 2 Look at each journal’s audience, exposure, policies, and procedures.

Review the journal’s peer review policies and submission process to see if you’re comfortable creating or adjusting your work according to their standards.
Open-access journals can increase your readership because anyone can access them.

Step 1 Craft an effective introduction with a thesis statement.

Scientific research papers: Instead of a “thesis,” you might write a “research objective” instead. This is where you state the purpose of your research.
“This paper explores how George Washington’s experiences as a young officer may have shaped his views during difficult circumstances as a commanding officer.”
“This paper contends that George Washington’s experiences as a young officer on the 1750s Pennsylvania frontier directly impacted his relationship with his Continental Army troops during the harsh winter at Valley Forge.”

Step 2 Write the literature review and the body of your paper.

Scientific research papers: Include a “materials and methods” section with the step-by-step process you followed and the materials you used. [5] X Research source
Read other research papers in your field to see how they’re written. Their format, writing style, subject matter, and vocabulary can help guide your own paper. [6] X Research source

Step 3 Write your conclusion that ties back to your thesis or research objective.

If you’re writing about George Washington’s experiences as a young officer, you might emphasize how this research changes our perspective of the first president of the U.S.
Link this section to your thesis or research objective.
If you’re writing a paper about ADHD, you might discuss other applications for your research.

Step 4 Write an abstract that describes what your paper is about.

Scientific research papers: You might include your research and/or analytical methods, your main findings or results, and the significance or implications of your research.
Try to get as many people as you can to read over your abstract and provide feedback before you submit your paper to a journal.

Step 1 Prepare your manuscript according to the journal’s requirements.

They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source

Step 2 Ask 2 colleagues to review your paper and revise it with their notes.

Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.

Step 1 Check your sources for plagiarism and identify 5 to 6 keywords.

If you have a paper on the purification of wastewater with fungi, you might use both the words “fungi” and “mushrooms.”
Use software like iThenticate, Turnitin, or PlagScan to check for similarities between the submitted article and published material available online. [15] X Research source

Step 2 Write a cover letter explaining why you chose their journal.

Header: Address the editor who will be reviewing your manuscript by their name, include the date of submission, and the journal you are submitting to.
First paragraph: Include the title of your manuscript, the type of paper it is (like review, research, or case study), and the research question you wanted to answer and why.
Second paragraph: Explain what was done in your research, your main findings, and why they are significant to your field.
Third paragraph: Explain why the journal’s readers would be interested in your work and why your results are important to your field.
Conclusion: State the author(s) and any journal requirements that your work complies with (like ethical standards”).
“We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.”
“All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to [insert the name of the target journal].”

Step 3 Submit your article according to the journal’s submission guidelines.

Submit your article to only one journal at a time.
When submitting online, use your university email account. This connects you with a scholarly institution, which can add credibility to your work.

Step 1 Try not to panic when you get the journal’s initial response.

Accept: Only minor adjustments are needed, based on the provided feedback by the reviewers. A first submission will rarely be accepted without any changes needed.
Revise and Resubmit: Changes are needed before publication can be considered, but the journal is still very interested in your work.
Reject and Resubmit: Extensive revisions are needed. Your work may not be acceptable for this journal, but they might also accept it if significant changes are made.
Reject: The paper isn’t and won’t be suitable for this publication, but that doesn’t mean it might not work for another journal.

Step 2 Revise your paper based on the reviewers’ feedback.

Try organizing the reviewer comments by how easy it is to address them. That way, you can break your revisions down into more manageable parts.
If you disagree with a comment made by a reviewer, try to provide an evidence-based explanation when you resubmit your paper.

Step 3 Resubmit to the same journal or choose another from your list.

If you’re resubmitting your paper to the same journal, include a point-by-point response paper that talks about how you addressed all of the reviewers’ comments in your revision. [22] X Research source
If you’re not sure which journal to submit to next, you might be able to ask the journal editor which publications they recommend.

Expert Q&A

About This Article

To publish a research paper, ask a colleague or professor to review your paper and give you feedback. Once you've revised your work, familiarize yourself with different academic journals so that you can choose the publication that best suits your paper. Make sure to look at the "Author's Guide" so you can format your paper according to the guidelines for that publication. Then, submit your paper and don't get discouraged if it is not accepted right away. You may need to revise your paper and try again. To learn about the different responses you might get from journals, see our reviewer's explanation below. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Understanding the Publishing Process

What’s happening with my paper? The publication process explained

The path to publication can be unsettling when you’re unsure what’s happening with your paper. Learn about staple journal workflows to see the detailed steps required for ensuring a rigorous and ethical publication.

Your team has prepared the paper, written a cover letter and completed the submission form. From here, it can sometimes feel like a waiting game while the journal has your paper. It can be unclear exactly who is currently handling your paper as most individuals are only involved in a few steps of the overall process. Journals are responsible for overseeing the peer review, publication and archival process: editors, reviewers, technical editors, production staff and other internal staff all have their roles in ensuring submissions meet rigorous scientific and ethical reporting standards.

Read on for an inside look at how a conventional peer-reviewed journal helps authors transform their initial submission to a certified publication.

Note that the description below is based on the process at PLOS journals. It is likely that at other journals, various roles (e.g. technical editor) may in fact also be played by the editor, and some journals may not have journal staff at all, with all roles played by volunteer academics. As such, please consider the processes and waypoints, rather than who performs them, as the key information.

Internal Checks on New Submissions

Estimated time: 10 days.

When a journal first receives your submission, there are typically two separate checks to confirm that the paper is appropriate and ready for peer review:

Technical check. Performed by a technical editor to ensure that the submission has been properly completed and is ready for further assessment. Blurry figures, missing ethical statements, and incomplete author affiliations are common issues that are addressed at this initial stage. Typically, there are three technical checks: upon initial submission, alongside the first decision letter, and upon acceptance.
Editorial screening . Once a paper passes the first check, an editor with subject expertise assesses the paper and determines whether it is within the journal’s scope and if it could potentially meet the required publication criteria. While there may be requests for further information and minor edits from the author as needed, the paper will either be desk rejected by the editor or allowed to proceed to peer review.

Both editors at this point will additionally make notes for items to be followed-up on at later stages. The publication process involves finding a careful balance for when each check occurs. Early checks need to be thorough so that editors with relevant expertise can focus on the scientific content and more advanced reporting standards, but no one wants to be asked to reformat references only to have their paper desk rejected a few days later.

Peer Review

Estimated time: 1 month.

Depending on the journal’s editorial structure, the editor who performed the initial assessment may also oversee peer review or another editor with more specific expertise may be assigned. Regardless of the journal’s specific process, the various roles and responsibilities during peer review include:

When you have questions or are unsure who your manuscripts is currently with, reach out to the journal staff for help (eg. [email protected]). They will be your lifeline, connecting you to all the other contributors working to assess the manuscript.

Whether an editor needs a reminder that all reviews are complete or a reviewer has asked for an extension, the journal acts as a central hub of communication for those involved with the publication process. As editors and reviewers are used to hearing from journal staff about their duties, any messages you send to the journal can be forwarded to them with proper context and instructions on how to proceed appropriately. Additionally, journal staff will be able to inform you of any delays, such as reviewer availability during summer and holiday periods.

Revision Decision

Estimated time: 1 day.

Editors evaluate peer reviewer feedback and their own expert assessment of the manuscript to reach a decision. After your editor submits a decision on your manuscript, the journal may review it before formally processing the decision and sending it on to you.

A technical editor may scan the manuscript and the review comments to ensure that journal standards have been followed. At this stage, the technical editor will also add requests to ensure the paper, if published, will adhere to journal requirements for data sharing, copyright, ethical reporting and the like.

Performing the second technical check at this stage and adding the journal requirements to the decision letter ultimately saves time by allowing authors to resolve the journal’s queries while making revisions based on comments from the reviewers.

Revised Submission Received

Estimated time: 3 days.

Upon receiving your revised submission, a technical editor will assess the revisions to confirm that the requests from the journal have been properly addressed. Before the paper is returned to the editor for their consideration, the journal needs to be confident that the paper won’t have any issues related to the metadata and reporting standards that could prevent publication. The editor may contact you to resolve any serious issues, though minor items can wait until the paper is accepted.

Subsequent Peer Review

Estimated time: 2 weeks, highly variable.

When your resubmitted paper has passed the required checks, it’ll be assigned back to the same editor who handled it during the first round of peer review. At this point, your paper has gone through two sets of journal checks and one round of peer review. If all has gone well so far, the paper should feel quite solid both in terms of scientific content and proper reporting standards.

When the editor receives your revised paper, they are asked to check if all reviewer comments have been adequately addressed and if the paper now adheres to the journal’s publication criteria. Depending on the situation, some editors may feel confident making this decision based on their own expertise while others may re-invite the previous reviewers for their opinions.

Individual responsibilities are the same as the initial round of peer review, but it is generally expected that later stages of peer review proceed quicker unless new concerns have been introduced as part of the revision.

Preliminary Acceptance

Estimated time: 1 week.

Your editor is satisfied with the scientific quality of your work and has chosen to accept it in principle. Before it can proceed to production and typesetting, the journal office will perform it’s third and final technical check, requesting any formatting changes or additional details that may be required.

When fulfilling these final journal requests, double check the final files to confirm all information is correct. If you need to make changes beyond those specifically required in the decision letter, inform the journal and explain why you made the unrequested changes. Any change that could affect the scientific meaning of the work will need to be approved by the handling editor. While including your rationale for the changes will help avoid delays, if there are extensive changes made at this point the paper may need to go through another round of formal review.

Formal Acceptance and Publication

Estimated time: 2 weeks.

After a technical editor has confirmed that all requests from the provisional acceptance letter have been addressed, you will receive your formal acceptance letter. This letter indicates that your paper is being passed from the Editorial department to the production department—that all information has been editorially approved. The scientific content has been approved through peer review, and the journal’s publication requirements have been met.

Congratulations to you and your co-authors! Your article will be available as soon as the journal transforms the submission into a typeset, consistently structured scientific manuscript, ready to be read and cited by your peers.

The contents of the Peer Review Center are also available as a live, interactive training session, complete with slides, talking points, and activities. …

The contents of the Writing Center are also available as a live, interactive training session, complete with slides, talking points, and activities. …

There’s a lot to consider when deciding where to submit your work. Learn how to choose a journal that will help your study reach its audience, while reflecting your values as a researcher…

Home → Get Published → How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jordan Kruszynski

January 4, 2024

You’re in academia.

You’re going steady.

Your research is going well and you begin to wonder: ‘ How exactly do I get a research paper published?’

If this is the question on your lips, then this step-by-step guide is the one for you. We’ll be walking you through the whole process of how to publish a research paper.

Publishing a research paper is a significant milestone for researchers and academics, as it allows you to share your findings, contribute to your field of study, and start to gain serious recognition within the wider academic community. So, want to know how to publish a research paper? By following our guide, you’ll get a firm grasp of the steps involved in this process, giving you the best chance of successfully navigating the publishing process and getting your work out there.

Understanding the Publishing Process

To begin, it’s crucial to understand that getting a research paper published is a multi-step process. From beginning to end, it could take as little as 2 months before you see your paper nestled in the pages of your chosen journal. On the other hand, it could take as long as a year .

Below, we set out the steps before going into more detail on each one. Getting a feel for these steps will help you to visualise what lies ahead, and prepare yourself for each of them in turn. It’s important to remember that you won’t actually have control over every step – in fact, some of them will be decided by people you’ll probably never meet. However, knowing which parts of the process are yours to decide will allow you to adjust your approach and attitude accordingly.

Each of the following stages will play a vital role in the eventual publication of your paper:

Preparing Your Research Paper
Finding the Right Journal
Crafting a Strong Manuscript
Navigating the Peer-Review Process
Submitting Your Paper
Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper

It all starts here. The quality and content of your research paper is of fundamental importance if you want to get it published. This step will be different for every researcher depending on the nature of your research, but if you haven’t yet settled on a topic, then consider the following advice:

Choose an interesting and relevant topic that aligns with current trends in your field. If your research touches on the passions and concerns of your academic peers or wider society, it may be more likely to capture attention and get published successfully.
Conduct a comprehensive literature review (link to lit. review article once it’s published) to identify the state of existing research and any knowledge gaps within it. Aiming to fill a clear gap in the knowledge of your field is a great way to increase the practicality of your research and improve its chances of getting published.
Structure your paper in a clear and organised manner, including all the necessary sections such as title, abstract, introduction (link to the ‘how to write a research paper intro’ article once it’s published) , methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
Adhere to the formatting guidelines provided by your target journal to ensure that your paper is accepted as viable for publishing. More on this in the next section…

Step 2: Finding the Right Journal

Understanding how to publish a research paper involves selecting the appropriate journal for your work. This step is critical for successful publication, and you should take several factors into account when deciding which journal to apply for:

Conduct thorough research to identify journals that specialise in your field of study and have published similar research. Naturally, if you submit a piece of research in molecular genetics to a journal that specialises in geology, you won’t be likely to get very far.
Consider factors such as the journal’s scope, impact factor, and target audience. Today there is a wide array of journals to choose from, including traditional and respected print journals, as well as numerous online, open-access endeavours. Some, like Nature , even straddle both worlds.
Review the submission guidelines provided by the journal and ensure your paper meets all the formatting requirements and word limits. This step is key. Nature, for example, offers a highly informative series of pages that tells you everything you need to know in order to satisfy their formatting guidelines (plus more on the whole submission process).
Note that these guidelines can differ dramatically from journal to journal, and details really do matter. You might submit an outstanding piece of research, but if it includes, for example, images in the wrong size or format, this could mean a lengthy delay to getting it published. If you get everything right first time, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble, as well as strengthen your publishing chances in the first place.

Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript

Crafting a strong manuscript is crucial to impress journal editors and reviewers. Look at your paper as a complete package, and ensure that all the sections tie together to deliver your findings with clarity and precision.

Begin by creating a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content of your paper.
Compose an informative abstract that summarises the purpose, methodology, results, and significance of your study.
Craft an engaging introduction (link to the research paper introduction article) that draws your reader in.
Develop a well-structured methodology section, presenting your results effectively using tables and figures.
Write a compelling discussion and conclusion that emphasise the significance of your findings.

Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process

Once you submit your research paper to a journal, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process to ensure its quality and validity. In peer-review, experts in your field assess your research and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, ultimately determining whether your paper is eligible for publishing or not. You are likely to encounter several models of peer-review, based on which party – author, reviewer, or both – remains anonymous throughout the process.

When your paper undergoes the peer-review process, be prepared for constructive criticism and address the comments you receive from your reviewer thoughtfully, providing clear and concise responses to their concerns or suggestions. These could make all the difference when it comes to making your next submission.

The peer-review process can seem like a closed book at times. Check out our discussion of the issue with philosopher and academic Amna Whiston in The Research Beat podcast!

Step 5: Submitting Your Paper

As we’ve already pointed out, one of the key elements in how to publish a research paper is ensuring that you meticulously follow the journal’s submission guidelines. Strive to comply with all formatting requirements, including citation styles, font, margins, and reference structure.

Before the final submission, thoroughly proofread your paper for errors, including grammar, spelling, and any inconsistencies in your data or analysis. At this stage, consider seeking feedback from colleagues or mentors to further improve the quality of your paper.

Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Rejection is a common part of the publishing process, but it shouldn’t discourage you. Analyse reviewer comments objectively and focus on the constructive feedback provided. Make necessary revisions and improvements to your paper to address the concerns raised by reviewers. If needed, consider submitting your paper to a different journal that is a better fit for your research.

For more tips on how to publish your paper out there, check out this thread by Dr. Asad Naveed ( @dr_asadnaveed ) – and if you need a refresher on the basics of how to publish under the Open Access model, watch this 5-minute video from Audemic Academy !

Final Thoughts

Successfully understanding how to publish a research paper requires dedication, attention to detail, and a systematic approach. By following the advice in our guide, you can increase your chances of navigating the publishing process effectively and achieving your goal of publication.

Remember, the journey may involve revisions, peer feedback, and potential rejections, but each step is an opportunity for growth and improvement. Stay persistent, maintain a positive mindset, and continue to refine your research paper until it reaches the standards of your target journal. Your contribution to your wider discipline through published research will not only advance your career, but also add to the growing body of collective knowledge in your field. Embrace the challenges and rewards that come with the publication process, and may your research paper make a significant impact in your area of study!

Looking for inspiration for your next big paper? Head to Audemic , where you can organise and listen to all the best and latest research in your field!

Keep striving, researchers! ✨

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

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Published: 30 April 2020
Volume 36 , pages 909–913, ( 2021 )

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Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common pitfalls for each section and recommend strategies to avoid them. Further, we give advice about target journal selection and authorship. In the online resource 1 , we provide an example of a high-quality scientific paper, with annotations identifying the elements we describe in this article.

Literature reviews as independent studies: guidelines for academic practice

What is Qualitative in Research

Scientific Truth in a Post-Truth Era: A Review*

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Writing a scientific paper is an important component of the research process, yet researchers often receive little formal training in scientific writing. This is especially true in low-resource settings. In this article, we explain why choosing a target journal is important, give advice about authorship, provide a basic structure for writing each section of a scientific paper, and describe common pitfalls and recommendations for each section. In the online resource 1 , we also include an annotated journal article that identifies the key elements and writing approaches that we detail here. Before you begin your research, make sure you have ethical clearance from all relevant ethical review boards.

Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process

We recommend that you select a “target journal” early in the writing process; a “target journal” is the journal to which you plan to submit your paper. Each journal has a set of core readers and you should tailor your writing to this readership. For example, if you plan to submit a manuscript about vaping during pregnancy to a pregnancy-focused journal, you will need to explain what vaping is because readers of this journal may not have a background in this topic. However, if you were to submit that same article to a tobacco journal, you would not need to provide as much background information about vaping.

Information about a journal’s core readership can be found on its website, usually in a section called “About this journal” or something similar. For example, the Journal of Cancer Education presents such information on the “Aims and Scope” page of its website, which can be found here: https://www.springer.com/journal/13187/aims-and-scope .

Peer reviewer guidelines from your target journal are an additional resource that can help you tailor your writing to the journal and provide additional advice about crafting an effective article [ 1 ]. These are not always available, but it is worth a quick web search to find out.

Identify Author Roles Early in the Process

Early in the writing process, identify authors, determine the order of authors, and discuss the responsibilities of each author. Standard author responsibilities have been identified by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [ 2 ]. To set clear expectations about each team member’s responsibilities and prevent errors in communication, we also suggest outlining more detailed roles, such as who will draft each section of the manuscript, write the abstract, submit the paper electronically, serve as corresponding author, and write the cover letter. It is best to formalize this agreement in writing after discussing it, circulating the document to the author team for approval. We suggest creating a title page on which all authors are listed in the agreed-upon order. It may be necessary to adjust authorship roles and order during the development of the paper. If a new author order is agreed upon, be sure to update the title page in the manuscript draft.

In the case where multiple papers will result from a single study, authors should discuss who will author each paper. Additionally, authors should agree on a deadline for each paper and the lead author should take responsibility for producing an initial draft by this deadline.

Structure of the Introduction Section

The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig. 1 . Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper. Include five main elements: why your research is important, what is already known about the topic, the “gap” or what is not yet known about the topic, why it is important to learn the new information that your research adds, and the specific research aim(s) that your paper addresses. Your research aim should address the gap you identified. Be sure to add enough background information to enable readers to understand your study. Table 1 provides common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

The main elements of the introduction section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Methods Section

The purpose of the methods section is twofold: to explain how the study was done in enough detail to enable its replication and to provide enough contextual detail to enable readers to understand and interpret the results. In general, the essential elements of a methods section are the following: a description of the setting and participants, the study design and timing, the recruitment and sampling, the data collection process, the dataset, the dependent and independent variables, the covariates, the analytic approach for each research objective, and the ethical approval. The hallmark of an exemplary methods section is the justification of why each method was used. Table 2 provides common methods section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Results Section

The focus of the results section should be associations, or lack thereof, rather than statistical tests. Two considerations should guide your writing here. First, the results should present answers to each part of the research aim. Second, return to the methods section to ensure that the analysis and variables for each result have been explained.

Begin the results section by describing the number of participants in the final sample and details such as the number who were approached to participate, the proportion who were eligible and who enrolled, and the number of participants who dropped out. The next part of the results should describe the participant characteristics. After that, you may organize your results by the aim or by putting the most exciting results first. Do not forget to report your non-significant associations. These are still findings.

Tables and figures capture the reader’s attention and efficiently communicate your main findings [ 3 ]. Each table and figure should have a clear message and should complement, rather than repeat, the text. Tables and figures should communicate all salient details necessary for a reader to understand the findings without consulting the text. Include information on comparisons and tests, as well as information about the sample and timing of the study in the title, legend, or in a footnote. Note that figures are often more visually interesting than tables, so if it is feasible to make a figure, make a figure. To avoid confusing the reader, either avoid abbreviations in tables and figures, or define them in a footnote. Note that there should not be citations in the results section and you should not interpret results here. Table 3 provides common results section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Discussion Section

Opposite the introduction section, the discussion should take the form of a right-side-up triangle beginning with interpretation of your results and moving to general implications (Fig. 2 ). This section typically begins with a restatement of the main findings, which can usually be accomplished with a few carefully-crafted sentences.

Major elements of the discussion section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Next, interpret the meaning or explain the significance of your results, lifting the reader’s gaze from the study’s specific findings to more general applications. Then, compare these study findings with other research. Are these findings in agreement or disagreement with those from other studies? Does this study impart additional nuance to well-accepted theories? Situate your findings within the broader context of scientific literature, then explain the pathways or mechanisms that might give rise to, or explain, the results.

Journals vary in their approach to strengths and limitations sections: some are embedded paragraphs within the discussion section, while some mandate separate section headings. Keep in mind that every study has strengths and limitations. Candidly reporting yours helps readers to correctly interpret your research findings.

The next element of the discussion is a summary of the potential impacts and applications of the research. Should these results be used to optimally design an intervention? Does the work have implications for clinical protocols or public policy? These considerations will help the reader to further grasp the possible impacts of the presented work.

Finally, the discussion should conclude with specific suggestions for future work. Here, you have an opportunity to illuminate specific gaps in the literature that compel further study. Avoid the phrase “future research is necessary” because the recommendation is too general to be helpful to readers. Instead, provide substantive and specific recommendations for future studies. Table 4 provides common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines

After you select a target journal, identify the journal’s author guidelines to guide the formatting of your manuscript and references. Author guidelines will often (but not always) include instructions for titles, cover letters, and other components of a manuscript submission. Read the guidelines carefully. If you do not follow the guidelines, your article will be sent back to you.

Finally, do not submit your paper to more than one journal at a time. Even if this is not explicitly stated in the author guidelines of your target journal, it is considered inappropriate and unprofessional.

Your title should invite readers to continue reading beyond the first page [ 4 , 5 ]. It should be informative and interesting. Consider describing the independent and dependent variables, the population and setting, the study design, the timing, and even the main result in your title. Because the focus of the paper can change as you write and revise, we recommend you wait until you have finished writing your paper before composing the title.

Be sure that the title is useful for potential readers searching for your topic. The keywords you select should complement those in your title to maximize the likelihood that a researcher will find your paper through a database search. Avoid using abbreviations in your title unless they are very well known, such as SNP, because it is more likely that someone will use a complete word rather than an abbreviation as a search term to help readers find your paper.

After you have written a complete draft, use the checklist (Fig. 3 ) below to guide your revisions and editing. Additional resources are available on writing the abstract and citing references [ 5 ]. When you feel that your work is ready, ask a trusted colleague or two to read the work and provide informal feedback. The box below provides a checklist that summarizes the key points offered in this article.

Checklist for manuscript quality

Data Availability

Michalek AM (2014) Down the rabbit hole…advice to reviewers. J Cancer Educ 29:4–5

Article Google Scholar

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Defining the role of authors and contributors: who is an author? http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authosrs-and-contributors.html . Accessed 15 January, 2020

Vetto JT (2014) Short and sweet: a short course on concise medical writing. J Cancer Educ 29(1):194–195

Brett M, Kording K (2017) Ten simple rules for structuring papers. PLoS ComputBiol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619

Lang TA (2017) Writing a better research article. J Public Health Emerg. https://doi.org/10.21037/jphe.2017.11.06

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Acknowledgments

Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.

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Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, 135 Dauer Dr, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Clara Busse & Ella August

Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2029, USA

Ella August

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Busse, C., August, E. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal. J Canc Educ 36 , 909–913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps

What comes next after you're done with your research? Publishing the results in a journal of course! We tell you how to present your work in the best way possible.

This post is part of a series, which serves to provide hands-on information and resources for authors and editors.

Things have gotten busy in scholarly publishing: These days, a new article gets published in the 50,000 most important peer-reviewed journals every few seconds, while each one takes on average 40 minutes to read. Hundreds of thousands of papers reach the desks of editors and reviewers worldwide each year and 50% of all submissions end up rejected at some stage.

In a nutshell: there is a lot of competition, and the people who decide upon the fate of your manuscript are short on time and overworked. But there are ways to make their lives a little easier and improve your own chances of getting your work published!

Well, it may seem obvious, but before submitting an academic paper, always make sure that it is an excellent reflection of the research you have done and that you present it in the most professional way possible. Incomplete or poorly presented manuscripts can create a great deal of frustration and annoyance for editors who probably won’t even bother wasting the time of the reviewers!

This post will discuss 7 steps to the successful publication of your research paper:

Check whether your research is publication-ready
Choose an article type
Choose a journal
Construct your paper
Decide the order of authors
Check and double-check
Submit your paper

1. Check Whether Your Research Is Publication-Ready

Should you publish your research at all?

If your work holds academic value – of course – a well-written scholarly article could open doors to your research community. However, if you are not yet sure, whether your research is ready for publication, here are some key questions to ask yourself depending on your field of expertise:

Have you done or found something new and interesting? Something unique?
Is the work directly related to a current hot topic?
Have you checked the latest results or research in the field?
Have you provided solutions to any difficult problems?
Have the findings been verified?
Have the appropriate controls been performed if required?
Are your findings comprehensive?

If the answers to all relevant questions are “yes”, you need to prepare a good, strong manuscript. Remember, a research paper is only useful if it is clearly understood, reproducible and if it is read and used .

2. Choose An Article Type

The first step is to determine which type of paper is most appropriate for your work and what you want to achieve. The following list contains the most important, usually peer-reviewed article types in the natural sciences:

Full original research papers disseminate completed research findings. On average this type of paper is 8-10 pages long, contains five figures, and 25-30 references. Full original research papers are an important part of the process when developing your career.

Review papers present a critical synthesis of a specific research topic. These papers are usually much longer than original papers and will contain numerous references. More often than not, they will be commissioned by journal editors. Reviews present an excellent way to solidify your research career.

Letters, Rapid or Short Communications are often published for the quick and early communication of significant and original advances. They are much shorter than full articles and usually limited in length by the journal. Journals specifically dedicated to short communications or letters are also published in some fields. In these the authors can present short preliminary findings before developing a full-length paper.

3. Choose a Journal

Are you looking for the right place to publish your paper? Find out here whether a De Gruyter journal might be the right fit.

Submit to journals that you already read, that you have a good feel for. If you do so, you will have a better appreciation of both its culture and the requirements of the editors and reviewers.

Other factors to consider are:

The specific subject area
The aims and scope of the journal
The type of manuscript you have written
The significance of your work
The reputation of the journal
The reputation of the editors within the community
The editorial/review and production speeds of the journal
The community served by the journal
The coverage and distribution
The accessibility ( open access vs. closed access)

4. Construct Your Paper

Each element of a paper has its purpose, so you should make these sections easy to index and search.

Don’t forget that requirements can differ highly per publication, so always make sure to apply a journal’s specific instructions – or guide – for authors to your manuscript, even to the first draft (text layout, paper citation, nomenclature, figures and table, etc.) It will save you time, and the editor’s.

Also, even in these days of Internet-based publishing, space is still at a premium, so be as concise as possible. As a good journalist would say: “Never use three words when one will do!”

Let’s look at the typical structure of a full research paper, but bear in mind certain subject disciplines may have their own specific requirements so check the instructions for authors on the journal’s home page.

4.1 The Title

It’s important to use the title to tell the reader what your paper is all about! You want to attract their attention, a bit like a newspaper headline does. Be specific and to the point. Keep it informative and concise, and avoid jargon and abbreviations (unless they are universally recognized like DNA, for example).

4.2 The Abstract

This could be termed as the “advertisement” for your article. Make it interesting and easily understood without the reader having to read the whole article. Be accurate and specific, and keep it as brief and concise as possible. Some journals (particularly in the medical fields) will ask you to structure the abstract in distinct, labeled sections, which makes it even more accessible.

A clear abstract will influence whether or not your work is considered and whether an editor should invest more time on it or send it for review.

4.3 Keywords

Keywords are used by abstracting and indexing services, such as PubMed and Web of Science. They are the labels of your manuscript, which make it “searchable” online by other researchers.

Include words or phrases (usually 4-8) that are closely related to your topic but not “too niche” for anyone to find them. Make sure to only use established abbreviations. Think about what scientific terms and its variations your potential readers are likely to use and search for. You can also do a test run of your selected keywords in one of the common academic search engines. Do similar articles to your own appear? Yes? Then that’s a good sign.

4.4 Introduction

This first part of the main text should introduce the problem, as well as any existing solutions you are aware of and the main limitations. Also, state what you hope to achieve with your research.

Do not confuse the introduction with the results, discussion or conclusion.

4.5 Methods

Every research article should include a detailed Methods section (also referred to as “Materials and Methods”) to provide the reader with enough information to be able to judge whether the study is valid and reproducible.

Include detailed information so that a knowledgeable reader can reproduce the experiment. However, use references and supplementary materials to indicate previously published procedures.

4.6 Results

In this section, you will present the essential or primary results of your study. To display them in a comprehensible way, you should use subheadings as well as illustrations such as figures, graphs, tables and photos, as appropriate.

4.7 Discussion

Here you should tell your readers what the results mean .

Do state how the results relate to the study’s aims and hypotheses and how the findings relate to those of other studies. Explain all possible interpretations of your findings and the study’s limitations.

Do not make “grand statements” that are not supported by the data. Also, do not introduce any new results or terms. Moreover, do not ignore work that conflicts or disagrees with your findings. Instead …

Be brave! Address conflicting study results and convince the reader you are the one who is correct.

4.8 Conclusion

Your conclusion isn’t just a summary of what you’ve already written. It should take your paper one step further and answer any unresolved questions.

Sum up what you have shown in your study and indicate possible applications and extensions. The main question your conclusion should answer is: What do my results mean for the research field and my community?

4.9 Acknowledgments and Ethical Statements

It is extremely important to acknowledge anyone who has helped you with your paper, including researchers who supplied materials or reagents (e.g. vectors or antibodies); and anyone who helped with the writing or English, or offered critical comments about the content.

Learn more about academic integrity in our blog post “Scholarly Publication Ethics: 4 Common Mistakes You Want To Avoid” .

Remember to state why people have been acknowledged and ask their permission . Ensure that you acknowledge sources of funding, including any grant or reference numbers.

Furthermore, if you have worked with animals or humans, you need to include information about the ethical approval of your study and, if applicable, whether informed consent was given. Also, state whether you have any competing interests regarding the study (e.g. because of financial or personal relationships.)

4.10 References

The end is in sight, but don’t relax just yet!

De facto, there are often more mistakes in the references than in any other part of the manuscript. It is also one of the most annoying and time-consuming problems for editors.

Remember to cite the main scientific publications on which your work is based. But do not inflate the manuscript with too many references. Avoid excessive – and especially unnecessary – self-citations. Also, avoid excessive citations of publications from the same institute or region.

5. Decide the Order of Authors

In the sciences, the most common way to order the names of the authors is by relative contribution.

Generally, the first author conducts and/or supervises the data analysis and the proper presentation and interpretation of the results. They put the paper together and usually submit the paper to the journal.

Co-authors make intellectual contributions to the data analysis and contribute to data interpretation. They review each paper draft. All of them must be able to present the paper and its results, as well as to defend the implications and discuss study limitations.

Do not leave out authors who should be included or add “gift authors”, i.e. authors who did not contribute significantly.

6. Check and Double-Check

As a final step before submission, ask colleagues to read your work and be constructively critical .

Make sure that the paper is appropriate for the journal – take a last look at their aims and scope. Check if all of the requirements in the instructions for authors are met.

Ensure that the cited literature is balanced. Are the aims, purpose and significance of the results clear?

Conduct a final check for language, either by a native English speaker or an editing service.

7. Submit Your Paper

When you and your co-authors have double-, triple-, quadruple-checked the manuscript: submit it via e-mail or online submission system. Along with your manuscript, submit a cover letter, which highlights the reasons why your paper would appeal to the journal and which ensures that you have received approval of all authors for submission.

It is up to the editors and the peer-reviewers now to provide you with their (ideally constructive and helpful) comments and feedback. Time to take a breather!

If the paper gets rejected, do not despair – it happens to literally everybody. If the journal suggests major or minor revisions, take the chance to provide a thorough response and make improvements as you see fit. If the paper gets accepted, congrats!

It’s now time to get writing and share your hard work – good luck!

If you are interested, check out this related blog post

[Title Image by Nick Morrison via Unsplash]

David Sleeman

David Sleeman worked as Senior Journals Manager in the field of Physical Sciences at De Gruyter.

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

Clara busse.

1 Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, 135 Dauer Dr, 27599 Chapel Hill, NC USA

Ella August

2 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029 USA

Associated Data

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Introduction

Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process

Identify Author Roles Early in the Process

Structure of the Introduction Section

The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig. 1 . Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper. Include five main elements: why your research is important, what is already known about the topic, the “gap” or what is not yet known about the topic, why it is important to learn the new information that your research adds, and the specific research aim(s) that your paper addresses. Your research aim should address the gap you identified. Be sure to add enough background information to enable readers to understand your study. Table Table1 1 provides common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13187_2020_1751_Fig1_HTML.jpg

The main elements of the introduction section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations

Methods Section

The purpose of the methods section is twofold: to explain how the study was done in enough detail to enable its replication and to provide enough contextual detail to enable readers to understand and interpret the results. In general, the essential elements of a methods section are the following: a description of the setting and participants, the study design and timing, the recruitment and sampling, the data collection process, the dataset, the dependent and independent variables, the covariates, the analytic approach for each research objective, and the ethical approval. The hallmark of an exemplary methods section is the justification of why each method was used. Table Table2 2 provides common methods section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Common methods section pitfalls and recommendations

Results Section

Tables and figures capture the reader’s attention and efficiently communicate your main findings [ 3 ]. Each table and figure should have a clear message and should complement, rather than repeat, the text. Tables and figures should communicate all salient details necessary for a reader to understand the findings without consulting the text. Include information on comparisons and tests, as well as information about the sample and timing of the study in the title, legend, or in a footnote. Note that figures are often more visually interesting than tables, so if it is feasible to make a figure, make a figure. To avoid confusing the reader, either avoid abbreviations in tables and figures, or define them in a footnote. Note that there should not be citations in the results section and you should not interpret results here. Table Table3 3 provides common results section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Common results section pitfalls and recommendations

Discussion Section

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13187_2020_1751_Fig2_HTML.jpg

Major elements of the discussion section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Finally, the discussion should conclude with specific suggestions for future work. Here, you have an opportunity to illuminate specific gaps in the literature that compel further study. Avoid the phrase “future research is necessary” because the recommendation is too general to be helpful to readers. Instead, provide substantive and specific recommendations for future studies. Table Table4 4 provides common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations

Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines

After you have written a complete draft, use the checklist (Fig. (Fig.3) 3 ) below to guide your revisions and editing. Additional resources are available on writing the abstract and citing references [ 5 ]. When you feel that your work is ready, ask a trusted colleague or two to read the work and provide informal feedback. The box below provides a checklist that summarizes the key points offered in this article.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13187_2020_1751_Fig3_HTML.jpg

Checklist for manuscript quality

(PDF 362 kb)

Acknowledgments

Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Data Availability

Compliance with ethical standards.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

Affiliations.

1 Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, 135 Dauer Dr, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
2 Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, 135 Dauer Dr, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. [email protected].
3 Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2029, USA. [email protected].
PMID: 32356250
PMCID: PMC8520870
DOI: 10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z

Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common pitfalls for each section and recommend strategies to avoid them. Further, we give advice about target journal selection and authorship. In the online resource 1, we provide an example of a high-quality scientific paper, with annotations identifying the elements we describe in this article.

Keywords: Manuscripts; Publishing; Scientific writing.

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How to find the right journal for your research (using actual data)

Joanna Wilkinson

Want to help your research flourish? We share tips for using publisher-neutral data and statistics to find the right journal for your research paper.

The right journal helps your research flourish. It puts you in the best position to reach a relevant and engaged audience, and can extend the impact of your paper through a high-quality publishing process.

Unfortunately, finding the right journal is a particular pain point for inexperienced authors and those who publish on interdisciplinary topics. The sheer number of journals published today is one reason for this. More than 42,000 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals were published in 2018 alone, and there’s been accelerated growth of more than 5% in recent years.

The overwhelming growth in journals has left many researchers struggling to find the best home for their manuscripts which can be a daunting prospect after several long months producing research. Submitting to the wrong journal can hinder the impact of your manuscript. It could even result in a series of rejections, stalling both your research and career. Conversely, the right journal can help you showcase your research to the world in an environment consistent with your values.

Keep reading to learn how solutions like Journal Citation Reports ™ (JCR) and Master Journal List can help you find the right journal for your research in the fastest possible time.

What to look for in a journal and why

To find the right journal for your research paper, it’s important to consider what you need and want out of the publishing process.

The goal for many researchers is to find a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal to publish in. This might be one that can support an application for tenure, promotion or future funding. It’s not always that simple, however. If your research is in a specialized field, you may want to avoid a journal with a multidisciplinary focus. And if you have ground-breaking results, you may want to pay attention to journals with a speedy review process and frequent publication schedule. Moreover, you may want to publish your paper as open access so that it’s accessible to everyone—and your institution or funder may also require this.

With so many points to consider, it’s good practice to have a journal in mind before you start writing. We published an earlier post to help you with this: Find top journals in a research field, step-by-step guide . Check it out to discover where the top researchers in your field are publishing.

Already written your manuscript? No problem: this blog will help you use publisher-neutral data and statistics to choose the right journal for your paper.

First stop: Manuscript Matcher in the Master Journal List

Master Journal List Manuscript Matcher is the ultimate place to begin your search for journals. It is a free tool that helps you narrow down your journal options based on your research topic and goals.

Find the right journal with Master Journal List

Pairing your research with a journal

Manuscript Matcher, also available via EndNote™ , provides a list of relevant journals indexed in the Web of Science™ . First, you’ll want to input your title and abstract (or keywords, if you prefer). You can then filter your results using the options shown on the left-hand sidebar, or simply click on the profile page of any journal listed.

Each journal page details the journal’s coverage in the Web of Science. Where available, it may also display a wealth of information, including:

open access information (including whether a journal is Gold OA)
the journal’s aims and scope
download statistics
average number of weeks from submission to publication, and
peer review information (including type and policy)

Ready to try Manuscript Matcher? Follow this link .

Identify the journals that are a good topical fit for your research using Manuscript Matcher. You can then move to Journal Citation Reports to understand their citation impact, audience and open access statistics.

Find the right journal with Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is the most powerful solution for journal intelligence. It uses transparent, publisher-neutral data and statistics to provide unique insight into a journal’s role and influence. This will help you produce a definitive list of journals best-placed to publish your findings, and more.

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Not all oil weighs equally on the scales of climate change.

New research from Stanford University finds that in 2015, nearly 9,000 oilfields in 90 countries produced greenhouse gases equivalent to 1.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide – roughly 5 percent of all emissions from fuel combustion that year. On average, oil production emitted of 10.3 grams of emissions for every megajoule of crude, but nations with the most carbon-intensive practices cranked out emissions at nearly twice that rate.

New research quantifies greenhouse gas emissions from crude oil production – from when companies first explore a site through transporting crude to refineries. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The research, published Aug. 30 in the journal Science , quantifies emissions from when companies first explore a site through transporting crude to refineries. Accounting for as much as 98 percent of global production, it is the most comprehensive assessment to date of carbon intensity and pollution by oil fields.

Yet according to lead author Mohammad Masnadi, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences ( Stanford Earth ), total emissions from crude oil production may be higher than even these latest calculations suggest, because the current analysis does not fully capture emissions related to leakage and venting of methane, a powerful global warming gas. Masnadi worked with Adam Brandt , an assistant professor of energy resources engineering and senior author on the paper.

The work suggests nations with the highest carbon-intensity produce more than 15 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent, on average, for every megajoule of crude. That’s roughly triple the average carbon intensity of oilfields in countries at the low end of the scale.

Nothing drives up carbon intensity like the practice of routinely burning, or flaring, natural gas, the researchers found. “Everybody talks about heavy crude oil, oil sands and unconventional resources,” Masnadi said. But the research shows that a country like Algeria, which produces the lightest crude oil in the world, has the highest carbon intensity because oilfield operators routinely burn large amounts of gas. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has relatively low carbon intensity because it flares little gas and has vast resources with low water content, which means less energy goes into treating and separating the oil.

The revelation suggests that investment in infrastructure and policies to better manage natural gas could deliver greater climate benefits than previously thought. “Really, the challenge with flaring is there needs to be a policy or a regulatory apparatus to say, ‘Burning gas with no purpose isn’t allowed; put it back in the ground or find something useful to do with it,’” Brandt said.

To be sure, emissions related to a reservoir’s location and accessibility still play an important role. The paper finds Venezuela and Canada rank among the most carbon-intensive oil producers because of the high energy needs and emissions associated with extracting heavy oil from unconventional reserves like tar sands. And so-called enhanced recovery techniques that use steam to loosen oil from aging wells add to the relatively high carbon intensity of oil production in places like Indonesia, Oman and California.

In all, the study suggests that eliminating routine flaring and cutting methane leaks and venting to rates already achieved in Norway could cut as much as 700 megatons of emissions from the oil sector’s annual carbon footprint – a reduction of roughly 43 percent. And over the coming century, the world could avoid as much as 18 gigatons of emissions from the oil production expected to continue under even aggressive scenarios for shifting away from fossil fuels – mainly by halting extraction of the dirtiest resources and improving gas management.

Estimating emissions

The study builds on a project led by Brandt called the Oil Production Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimator, or OPGEE, which California air regulators now use to estimate emissions from different crudes that California imports or produces as part of the state’s low-carbon fuel standard.

But until now, large gaps remained in even the best estimates of emissions from crude oil production on a global scale because they worked backward from economic data, calculating how many barrels oil companies were likely to have produced based on oil prices in a given period. According to Masnadi, “When you do this, you’re missing lots of underlying processes that lead to emissions.”

The new simulator, by contrast, calculates emissions from the bottom up. The researchers developed models of the physical processes involved at each stage from initial exploration through transport to refineries. Data-intensive calculations for a single field could require measures for up to 50 parameters, including oil density, production rates and the amount of natural gas that the operator burned or captured in pipelines – as well as whether a producer injects water or steam to coax crude from wells, or uses some other method.

Gathering that kind of detail for thousands of active oil fields around the world was daunting. “It’s the first time we’ve been able to do this at this very resolved oil field-by-oil field level,” Brandt said. But as few as 1,000 fields account for nearly two-thirds of global production, and the researchers realized they could focus on mining open-source data sets for those heavy hitters. For the remaining fields – mostly smaller scale producers – they could find information in private databases.

The group ultimately scoured public sources, including peer-reviewed research, news reports, technical reports, government databases and literature from the Society of Petroleum Engineering for one year, and then partnered with companies to gain access to two proprietary data sets. They then assigned quality scores to the different data sets, giving more weight to peer-reviewed sources and less to news reports and commercial sources that they agreed to keep private.

Societies remain heavily dependent on crude oil, which today goes into products ranging from asphalt and jet fuel to fertilizer and medicine. “Everybody lives based on these fossil fuel resources,” Masnadi said. “It’s not very feasible to get rid of this energy resource in one night or in one year.” The question is how to accelerate that transition. Part of the answer provided by this paper is understanding in fine detail where we stand today – and why. “Now we can move forward.”

Adam Brandt is also a center fellow, by courtesy, at the Precourt Institute for Energy . Additional co-authors are from Aramco Services Co., Ford Motor Co., University of Calgary, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Mellon University, University of British Columbia, California Environmental Protection Agency, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, University of Michigan, International Energy Agency, Baker Hughes, Chalmers University of Technology, Cornell University and Argonne National Laboratory.

The work was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Aramco Services Co., Ford Motor Co., the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Hewlett Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Media Contacts

Josie Garthwaite, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences: (650) 497-0947, [email protected]

Adam Brandt, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences: (650) 724-8251, [email protected]

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Open access
Published: 22 May 2024

Electric recycling of Portland cement at scale

Cyrille F. Dunant ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5176-4439 1 na1 ,
Shiju Joseph ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1829-3043 1 na1 ,
Rohit Prajapati ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2383-6858 1 na1 &
Julian M. Allwood ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0931-3831 1 na1

Nature volume 629 , pages 1055–1061 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Civil engineering

Cement production causes 7.5% of global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions, arising from limestone decarbonation and fossil-fuel combustion 1 , 2 , 3 . Current decarbonation strategies include substituting Portland clinker with supplementary materials, but these mainly arise in emitting processes, developing alternative binders but none yet promises scale, or adopting carbon capture and storage that still releases some emissions 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . However, used cement is potentially an abundant, decarbonated feedstock. Here we show that recovered cement paste can be reclinkered if used as a partial substitute for the lime–dolomite flux used in steel recycling nowadays. The resulting slag can meet existing specifications for Portland clinker and can be blended effectively with calcined clay and limestone. The process is sensitive to the silica content of the recovered cement paste, and silica and alumina that may come from the scrap, but this can be adjusted easily. We show that the proposed process may be economically competitive, and if powered by emissions-free electricity, can lead to zero emissions cement while also reducing the emissions of steel recycling by reducing lime flux requirements. The global supply of scrap steel for recycling may treble by 2050, and it is likely that more slag can be made per unit of steel recycled. With material efficiency in construction 9 , 10 , future global cement requirements could be met by this route.

Maximising the benefits of calcium carbonate in sustainable cements: opportunities and challenges associated with alkaline waste carbonation

Cement substitution with secondary materials can reduce annual global CO2 emissions by up to 1.3 gigatons

Environmental impacts and decarbonization strategies in the cement and concrete industries

Concrete is the most used material on the planet, after water, and is responsible for approximately 7.5% of total anthropogenic CO 2 emissions 1 , 2 , 3 .

The two main strategies deployed to date to reduce emissions from Portland cement production are fuel switching (using fossil gas, municipal waste or biofuels instead of coke and petcoke) and increased use of substitution materials, such as fly ash and slag. However, these strategies cannot lead to zero emissions. Moreover, the two most common substitution materials, ground-granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash are themselves by-products of primary steel production and coal power stations, both of which are highly emitting and therefore must be phased out in the transition to zero emissions. There has been a recent surge of interest in ternary blends with calcined clay and limestone (commonly known as LC 3 ) 4 . Nevertheless, it could be difficult to achieve substitution levels greater than 50% as these blends still require Portland clinker for activation 5 . Meanwhile, alternative clinkers or binder systems to replace Portland clinker are under development, but none so far can be made at scale without significant emissions 6 , 7 , 8 . Carbon capture and storage could potentially be applied to cement making 11 , 12 but current projects attempt the capture of the process emissions only, without storage 13 .

Most emissions associated with concrete arise in the production of Portland cement, about 40% from fuel combustion and about 60% from limestone decarbonation. Both sources are hard to abate. High-temperature processes are not easily electrified, no alternative cement chemistry can be produced at a comparable scale and no natural source of un-carbonated calcium is available in the required quantities.

A widely deployed high-temperature electric process is the electric-arc furnace (EAF) used for recycling steel. This recycling occurs in two stages. First, scrap is melted and oxidized to remove dirt, carbon and phosphorus. Then, in a ladle furnace, sulfur is removed, and the steel is alloyed. In both steps, a flux is introduced to protect the steel from air, provide the required basicity, protect the lining and the graphite electrodes and increase energy efficiency. This flux is made from limestone–dolomite in a decarbonation process with the same process emissions as Portland cement 14 .

A widely available high-volume source of decarbonated calcium is found in the hydrated cement paste embedded in used concrete. It has been known for a long time that it is possible, in principle, to reclinker hydrated cement paste (HCP) 15 . However, there are several challenges to applying this process in a conventional kiln when a large fraction of hydrated cement paste is used. The presence of sulfates (added as set retardant during production) increases the belite content of the reclinkered cement at the expense of highly reactive alite 16 . Furthermore, sulfates are volatile and will condense in cooler parts of the kiln system, causing operational difficulties 17 . Nonetheless, there exist commercial offerings of cement made with partly replaced raw meal (such as Holcim GeoCycle). Separately, cement recovered from used concrete can contain a high fraction of chlorides that, if retained, would exclude the use of reclinkered cement in reinforced applications 18 .

Recovered cement paste (RCP) is not commercially available at scale at present. Separating paste from the aggregates in concrete has been a niche but active area of research and development 19 , 20 , driven not by the prospect of using the cement paste but by the possibility of recovering high-quality aggregates that have much higher commercial value than those produced from crushing concrete demolition waste 21 . The value of the improved recovered aggregates is not at present high enough to cover the extra cost of processing, so RCP is currently landfilled. However, the know-how and the technologies required to produce RCP at scale exist 22 . Recently, interest in RCP has grown because of interest in using it in a carbon mineralization process 23 , 24 , and start-up companies have been launched to sell specialist grinding equipment 25 . Thus, a nascent market for RCP now exists.

Here we report an innovation that arises from the combination of the above observations: electric cement recycling at scale. In the process shown in Fig. 3e , and described in the patent application 26 for Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC), the emitting lime flux used in steel recycling is replaced by recovered cement paste that has already been decarbonated so will release no further process emissions, although it may require small adjustment with lime. The paste is reclinkered as it is fluxed into a slag. The higher temperature of the EAF (compared with cement kilns) both maintains as gas the sulfates and chlorides that held back earlier reclinkering trials and favours the production of alite over belite. The slag is cooled and ground to produce a conventional Portland clinker in an all-electric process, which, with a decarbonized grid, has neither process nor combustion emissions. This approach will in parallel reduce the emissions of steel recycling by reducing the need for flux production. Both steel recycling slags can be made cementitious by this approach, with the ladle slags being closer to cement composition. However, in this paper, we focus on the EAF (oxidizing) slags as their volume is larger.

In the context of steel recycling, fluxes are the minerals added to the steel and slag is the resulting viscous layer floating on top of the molten steel. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that with the right composition of flux based on hydrated or recovered cement paste, the slag, when cooled rapidly, becomes clinker, the artificial mineral that, after grinding and blending, can be made into cement.

To evaluate the proposed new process route, 28 slags were produced from flux derived from cement paste both prepared for this purpose and recovered from demolition waste. Lime, alumina and silica were added to the fluxes. The composition of a selection of these slags is given in Table 1 , with the full set specified in the Supplementary Information . The slags were processed in induction furnaces over clean steel with various crucibles and oxidizing conditions. In an industrial EAF, oxidation and reduction occur in a controlled sequence: these effects are tested separately here. The slags were air-cooled: at this scale, cooling rates of 10–20 K s −1 at least are achieved, which is fast enough to stabilize alite. The slags were then ground and characterized. Some of the slags with compositions matching conventional clinker listed in Table 2 were blended and used to make mortar bars.

The diffractograms of selected slags are shown in Fig. 1 . The diffractograms of all slags close to from the alite-forming zone (Fig. 1a , yellow) have the main peaks of cementitious phases typical of Portland cement: alite (C 3 S), belite (C 2 S) as well as C 4 AF, and tricalcium aluminate (C 3 A). In general, the phases present are those predicted in the thermodynamic CaO–SiO 2 –Al 2 O 3 –Fe 2 O 3 system (Fig. 1a ). Rietvield refinement indicates that alite and belite together account for more than 70% of the products in most of the slags made in the zone in which commercial cement kilns operate (indicated by the narrow yellow region in Fig. 1a in which Al 2 O 3 is below 6%). For reference, Portland cement should normatively contain 66.7% by mass of alite and belite 27 . Using this criterion, our process route can make Portland clinkers over a fairly wide zone. In the belite-forming zone (Fig. 1a , orange region), ghelenite is also sometimes observed. Ghelenite (C 2 AS) is the dominant species in the ghelenite zone (Fig. 1a , pink region). The effective lime-to-silica ratio ( Methods ) is an excellent predictor of the silicate phases that will form (Fig. 1b ).

a , Ternary diagram pair presenting the oxide composition of the slags studied in the SiO 2 –CaO–Al 2 O 3 and SiO 2 –CaO–Fe 2 O 3 systems measured using XRF. Every oxide composition was analysed by X-ray diffraction, and the resulting crystallographic composition is shown as a pie chart. Right, a detail of the SiO 2 -CaO-Al 2 O 3 ternary diagram on the left. b , Percentage of gehlenite in the slag and the fraction of alite over total alite and belite in the tested systems both as a function of ( C / S )*, the available lime-to-silica ratio for the formation of silicate phases. The method for calculating ( C / S )* is given in the Methods . The grey shaded region represents the range of C / S for which both Alite and Belite can form. c , Diffractograms and phase compositions of selected slags produced in this work. γ, C 2 S-γ; β, C 2 S-β; m, C 3 S-monoclinic; g, ghelenite; a, C 3 A cubic; c, graphite; and q, quartz. d , Comparison between the tested slags and compositions reported in the literature. The literature used to create this figure is given in Supplementary Table 3 . Med., medium; Com., commercial; a.u., arbitrary units.

The X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis of selected slags is provided in Table 1 (for full results, see Supplementary Table 1 ). The oxide composition of the resulting slags does not differ markedly when using carbon or magnesium crucibles (Supplementary Fig. 1 ) indicating that over clean steel, there is no significant exchange of species between the slag and the melt. Early experiments performed with an aluminium oxide lining exhibited significant aluminium leaching (Supplementary Fig. 1 ) and were therefore abandoned. The contamination inherent to steel scrap used in commercial operations would introduce silica and alumina to the slag: the same final compositions would then be reached by adding more lime (CaO) to the flux.

RCP contains a higher proportion of SiO 2 than HCP, almost certainly derived from aggregates still attached to the paste (Fig. 1a ). Assuming that feedstock cement has the composition of the CEM I we used as a control, the RCP would contain 52% HCP and 48% impurities. Once corrected by adding lime to have the right balance of calcium and silica (Table 3 ), it reclinkers as well as pure hydrated paste.

The metallurgical function of EAF oxidizing slags is to allow the dephosphorization of steel while limiting sulfur in the melt. The slag compositions we tested overlap with those reported in the literature (Fig. 1d ) and have the appropriate chemistry. To verify their suitability for EAF operations, slags of typical composition were used, and the resulting steel composition was tested but using a considerably larger flux-to-steel ratio than would be practical in present-day furnace designs (roughly 9:30 compared with 1:30). Despite these unfavourable conditions, only very small amounts of sulfur transferred into the steel (Table 4 ). In steel-making, following further desulfurization, so far most alloys have a sulfur concentration of less than 0.05% (ref. 28 ), which can be achieved easily from the values reported in Table 4 . This confirms that the basic slags produced from the proposed process can be used in EAFs to de-phosphorize steel.

The cement setting time was measured using calorimetry at 240–280 min (Fig. 2a , ±20 min after 29 , the middle point between the dormant period trough and the peak of the silicate hydration peak). Mortars made with the cements were fairly easy to place with small additions of superplasticizer required for the slags made in graphite crucibles (GC80) and for LC 3 mixes. No early setting or flash setting was observed. No bleeding was observed (Fig. 2d , second from the left). On demoulding, the samples were inspected and no defects were found (Fig. 2d , third from the left). All cements, both pure and those blended with calcined clay and limestone, exhibited similar strength development to those made with commercial clinker despite being undersulfated (Supplementary Fig. 2 ), and containing a fraction of contaminants probably introduced when the crucible was scraped during tapping (Fig. 1c ). The relationship between strength development and heat release (Fig. 2a,c ) for both our new clinker and a conventional commercial clinker was similar. Higher belite content is associated with lower early strength, whereas higher alite relates to higher early age strength (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Table 2 ). The improved performance of commercial cement (compared with that made from commercial clinker) is because of finer grinding 30 (Fig. 2b ). With commercial grinding equipment the clinker produced with the new process is likely to have the same grindability as commercial clinkers (Fig. 2b ).

a , Instantaneous and cumulative heat released by high- and medium-alite cement and high-C 3 A cement produced with the new process, commercial clinker ground in the same conditions and commercial cement produced with the commercial clinker shown for reference. b , Cumulative and frequency plots of the particle size distributions of the cements used for the strength tests. c , Strength evolution of cements produced using the new process, both as pure cements and LC 3 blends. d , Slag as poured from the furnace, fresh and hardened mortar bars; sample after compression failure. Med., medium; Com., commercial; gyp., gypsum.

Together, these results demonstrate the production of Portland cement by reclinkering HCP or RCP on a bed of molten steel. The slags arising from the new flux have the right composition for their metallurgical function. The mineralogy of the output can be tuned as in any conventional kiln, and high-quality clinker can be produced.

Figure 3a confirms the emissions saving from electric cement recycling and anticipates production costs comparable with those of present-day cement that are dominated by the price of fuel and SCMs 31 . All processes are electrified, and both the extra costs and total power requirements of the new process are dominated by heating old concrete before crushing. This is currently required to separate a clean stream of RCP but will be optimized in future. With a decarbonized grid, the only emissions of co-production arise from the small remaining requirement for lime flux, and these would be allocated between the two materials by negotiation. The amount of lime flux required in EAFs depends on the steel scrap feedstock and the furnace design. Clean steel requires less flux to bind residue from the steel, but more to create enough slag to cover the electrodes. All such flux could be replaced with RCP to produce cement. By contrast, although less clean steel requires less flux to cover the electrodes, more is needed to bind with unwanted silica to ensure high slag basicity required for steel quality. In this case, adding RCP to the flux would not reduce lime use but would still produce additional mass of clinker without increasing the emissions of steel recycling. Therefore, Fig. 3a distinguishes the emissions savings from a typical reduction in lime use and those from avoiding conventional cement production. The fact that operating expenses are much greater than capital or labour costs, suggests that the market viability demonstrated here for the UK will translate to other countries.

LC 3 -50 is 50% clinker, 30% calcined clay, 15% limestone and 5% gypsum; CEC is the process described in this paper. a , Emissions are estimated based on global data, whereas costs are estimated for the UK. The four recipes for electric cement (CEC) use global average or future zero emissions electricity, with or without blending with calcined clay and are compared with ordinary Portland cement and LC 3 -50. Full details of the sources and calculation of these estimates are provided in the Supplementary Information . b , Representation of the range of concrete compositions and the outcomes of separation (W is water). c , Historical and projected cement and clinker production worldwide, implied RCP availability assuming a 50-year lifetime for buildings (left); global cement-related emissions under a range of scenarios (right); the potential supply of RCP is greater than that which could be used in EAFs but production could be increased if new dedicated EAFs are built to produce cement. d , The current material flows and industrial operations for the production of bulk construction materials. e , The material flows anticipated if the process described in this paper is deployed at scale in the UK and all arising steel scrap is recycled domestically. cem., cement; decarb, decarbonized.

The overall supply chain reconfiguration is extensive (compare Fig. 3d,e ), but every change can be economically viable. Figure 3d draws on current estimates of mass flows in the UK: steel demand is around 15 Mt yr −1 , mainly from imports, leading to around 10 Mt yr −1 of scrap, most of which is currently exported 32 ; cement demand is around 13 Mt yr −1 , requiring clinker production of around 9 Mt yr −1 (ref. 33 ). Total construction and demolition waste is around 68 Mt yr −1 (refs. 34 , 35 ), most of which is concrete. A conservative estimate is that 4–4.5 Mt of RCP could be produced with a 60% collection rate. The data in Fig. 3e assume that scrap steel volumes approach annual demand to reach 14 Mt yr −1 and that all UK steel scrap is recycled domestically, following the expansion of EAF capacity. This defines the total capacity for electric cement production. In this study, experiments used 5–30% of the steel mass as the input flux mass. EAFs can operate now with up to 20–30% slag. Although this could be increased, higher values are at present considered undesirable as slag is a waste by-product now, so the figure assumes a slag-to-steel ratio of 1:7, or 14%.

All processes, norms, practices and habits in the construction industry are centred around Portland cement. Therefore, it would be difficult for any new material to replace it, unless it had considerable advantages. As Portland cement is made from the most abundant elements in the crust of Earth, it is unlikely that any potential substitute could be cheaper or available in equivalent volume. Despite its requirement for high temperatures, the present production of Portland cement is already energy-efficient, exploiting molten iron and aluminium oxide phases to transport ions. Therefore, the only practical avenues for decarbonizing cement production depend on altering the range of allowable compositions, using new SCMs or changing the process by which cement is produced. Recycling Portland cement as proposed here saves the process emissions and the bulk of the energy required for production 36 .

The proposed industrial symbiosis needs careful development: both steel-making and clinkering processes require careful chemical tuning but as steel is more expensive, its requirements would dominate decision-making. Substituting RCP for lime flux should make no marked change to the steel quality or the air pollution created during the EAF process, so the existing regimes of exhaust scrubbing should remain appropriate. In co-production with steel, cement would have a higher iron content because of rheological requirements for slags. However, our experiments show that the cement composition can be tuned with additions of lime to target-optimized blends. The cement produced using this new process can have a higher alite fraction than previously published results 15 or commercial clinker (Fig. 1b ).

Figure 3e suggests that about 2.2 Mt of the new clinker could be produced in the UK annually in co-production with steel. If this is blended with calcined clay, it could make about 4.5 Mt of LC 3 -50 cement. This could meet the final demand when combined with the strategies of material efficiency. In particular, avoiding overdesign 9 , extending life and increasing the use 10 could deliver the services with less than half of total cement production. However, the total production of the electrically recycled cement in the UK will not be limited by RCP availability. EAF operators could choose to produce more slag than what is produced now, which might also increase the quality of steel production. The increase in costs would be offset by new revenue from the recycled cement. If EAF operators find this commercially attractive and double the amount of slag produced with each batch of steel, the overall output of this process in the UK could be as much as 10 Mt.

Figure 3c expands this analysis to look at the global potential scale of the new process. In the present work, we have assumed that electrically recycled cement will initially be made in co-production with recycled steel, to minimize new capital investments. If global EAF capacity expands as anticipated and all resulting slag is processed into LC 3 cements, this would lead to around 1.4 Gt of electric cement and 2 Gt of CO 2 abatement. However, if additional dedicated EAFs are installed and used solely for the electrical production of cement over a constant volume of steel, we estimate that global production of the new cement could be as much as 2.4 Gt leading to emissions abatement of 3 Gt compared with a scenario with no abatement. This represents an 80% abatement of sectoral emissions otherwise expected in 2050. The total potential is constrained not only by EAF capacity but also by the quality of RCP separation and the contamination of steel scrap.

This study demonstrates that using existing industrial-scale equipment it is possible to recycle Portland cement into Portland cement in an all-electric process. The process can be operated as co-production with steel recycling or for the exclusive production of cement using an EAF with a small untapped pool of molten steel. The process is fundamentally a material substitution within existing processes, equipment and standards, and so it could scale rapidly. It creates the first zero-emissions alternative to existing cement production, to our knowledge, which accounts for 7.5% of the present anthropogenic emissions.

We have prepared cement pastes and mortars for demonstrating the process as well as blending cements for characterization and to make mortar.

To prepare HCP, cement provided by Tarmac (CEM I 52.5N) was used with a water-to-cement ratio of 0.6 at room temperature. The oxide composition of the original cement is given in Extended Data Table 1 , which also specifies the oxide composition of the other additions used to create the fluxes in these trials. The cement was kept in sealed containers and cured for 6 months to ensure it was almost fully hydrated. The blocks of cement pastes were then fired at 500 °C in a muffle furnace. The final loss on ignition was 13.7%. Recovered paste was obtained from the dust collector of the concrete processing plant of Day Aggregates. It was not subject to any treatment.

The raw meal flux was prepared using homogeneously mixed powders crushed to less than 5 mm in size.

Several steel sources were used: high-purity steel (electrolytic iron flake from Willian Rowland, lot no. 16M-134), steel ingots and steel balls (composition measured by optical emission spectroscopy is given in Extended Data Table 2 ).

The ground clinkers were blended with calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum) in powder form (VWR Chemicals, AnalaR NORMAPUR) to make cements. The amount of gypsum was adjusted to allow measurement of the effect of gypsum addition on early age reactivity (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Fig. 2 ). The mortars were prepared following EN 196-1, using standard sand (Société nouvelle du littoral) at a water-to-binder ratio of 0.5. Limestone calcined clay cements (LC 3 ) were prepared by blending clinker (50%) with 30% metakaolin (supplied by Imerys), 15% ground limestone and 5% calcium sulfate dihydrate. The mix proportions are given in Extended Data Table 3 . The addition of some superplasticizers (Masterglenium 51, Master Builders) was necessary to ensure workability for some mixes, particularly with the LC 3 blends.

Three furnaces of different sizes and operating conditions were used.

A small-size magnesium oxide crucible (MO2) of 100 mm height and 50 mm diameter, under inert conditions (flushed with argon) was used with 500 g high-purity steel and 100 g powder of raw meal flux. The flux was loaded on top of the steel, which was heated up to 1,650–1,750 °C and held for 15 min. The slag was stirred once using a steel rod during the heating cycle and was tapped out on a 20-mm thick steel plate. The slag samples were slightly oxidized during the mixing and tapping out process.

A medium-size graphite crucible (GC80) of dimensions 300 mm height and 100 mm diameter loaded with 12 kg iron balls and 2 kg raw meal powder was heated in reducing conditions (due to the leaching of carbon from the crucible), in an induction furnace powered by three-phase 50 Hz electricity, generating single phase output power of 112 kW, 1,200/600 V and 220/440 A at 2–3.3 kHz. The furnace is equipped with a 750-l capacity water tank for cooling, operated between 2.8 bar and 6.2 bar pressure, providing IP54 degree of protection. The flux was loaded on top of the steel and heated to 1,650–1,750 °C. During the process, it was stirred with long steel rods. After holding at this temperature for 15 min, the slag was tapped off using steel rods to scrape it into a steel box. The slag was spread on the box to ensure fast cooling. After the slag was tapped off, new flux was added, repeating the entire process. Typically, three to five different slags were produced from each of the melts.

A large-size induction furnace with alumina lining (AL250) from Capital Refractories with a Coral GR9 lining made of 80–90% aluminium oxide and 10–20% magnesium oxide was used in mildly oxidizing conditions. The furnace is powered by a three-phase 295 kVA, 415 V, 50 Hz power supply, generating an output of 250 kW and 1,000 Hz. The AL250 had 700 mm height and 300 mm diameter and was loaded with 200 kg steel ingot and 10 kg raw meal powder. First, steel was allowed to melt and then flux was added on top. The furnace was heated up to 1,650–1,700 °C for about 30 min. The slag was tapped into a steel box for cooling.

After cooling, the slags were crushed to less than 5 mm to allow for the removal of steel residuals using magnets. Furthermore, the slag from the small furnace (MO2) was ground in a planetary ring mill for 30–60 s, and the slags from the other two furnaces were ground in a ball mill with steel balls as charge. The ball mill was operated for 3 h at 16 rpm, with charge-to-feed-mass ratio of 1:7. The raw meal was prepared using different materials to cover a range of flux composition. Further details of raw meal blending are given in Table 3 .

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses were performed with a Rigaku ZSX Primus IV XRF spectrometer, using the quantitative Fluxana Raw calibration application. Lithium borate was used as the flux in the bead-making process. The sample-to-flux ratio was 1:10. All samples were fired in a muffle furnace before bead making. The heating profile was as follows: set point 900 °C, heating rate: 3 °C min −1 , hold time: 5 h.

X-ray diffraction was performed with a Bruker D8 advance spectrometer with cobalt anode (Co Kα 1 = 1.789 Å) operated at 35 kV and 35 mA. A cobalt source was preferred over copper to minimize the fluorescence from Fe–K edge emissions. The samples were front-loaded and the scan range was 5–70° 2 θ with a step size of 0.02° 2 θ and a time per step of 0.5 s. Each measurement took around 30 min. The Rietveld analysis to quantify the crystalline phase content was performed using Topas Academic v.7 software. The lattice parameters and crystallite size were allowed to refine, whereas the atomic positions were not refined. The amorphous content of the two highly amorphous samples was determined by the external standard method using corundum as the standard. Determining the amorphous content of other clinkers was difficult as a McCrone mill was not available, and it is crucial to mill the particle down to low fineness to ensure the amorphous content is measured appropriately 37 .

Optical emission spectroscopy measurements were performed with an Amtek Spectrolab S.

The mortars were mixed according to the provisions of EN 196-1. The mix proportions are given in Supplementary Table 3 . The surface of the mortar was smoothed using a trowel, the mortars were covered with a plastic wrap and left to set for 24 h. At 24 h, the mortars were demoulded and put to cure under water in a room of temperature 23 ± 2 °C.

For strength testing, the samples were taken out of the water and wiped. The bars were cut using a diamond saw into 40 mm cubes. The cubes were loaded in compression, as per EN 196-1, with the casting surface on the side and a loading rate of 2,400 N s −1 . The peak load ( L ) and the area of the cube ( A ) were recorded, and the compressive strength ( F c ) on days 2, 7 and 28 was reported as

( C / S )* is the ratio relevant for the formation of calcium silicates. It is calculated from the CaO, SiO 2 , Al 2 O 3 and Fe 2 O 3 content from XRF, as well as FeO and metallic iron (Fe) and the free lime content determined from X-ray diffraction (XRD). The total Fe 2 O 3 content in slag is determined from

All the Fe 2 O 3 is then assumed to form C 4 AF. The CaO required for the formation of C 4 AF is

And the CaO required to form C 3 A from the residual Al 2 O 3 is

Then ( C / S )* is

Negative values of ( C / S )* indicate that no alite or belite can form. However, the amount of lime, alumina and silica in the system determines the amount of ghelenite formed.

Data availability

All data from the experiments reported in this paper are contained in the tables of the main paper and Supplementary Information .

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by EPSRC (grant EP/S019111/1, UK FIRES and grant EP/W026104/1, Cambridge Electric Cement) and Innovate UK (grant G116761, Cement2Zero).

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Cyrille F. Dunant, Shiju Joseph, Rohit Prajapati, Julian M. Allwood

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Cyrille F. Dunant, Shiju Joseph, Rohit Prajapati & Julian M. Allwood

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Contributions

C.F.D. designed the overall programme of trials and with J.M.A. conceptualized the paper, designed the detailed experimental trials, conducted analysis and wrote the text and Supplementary Information . S.J. and R.P. contributed to the experimental design, performed experimental work and analysis and contributed to editing of the text.

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Correspondence to Cyrille F. Dunant or Julian M. Allwood .

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C.F.D. and J.M.A. are named in the patent associated with the process described in this paper 26 and are founder-directors of the company Cambridge Electric Cement, which has been created to promote the use of the patent.

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Dunant, C.F., Joseph, S., Prajapati, R. et al. Electric recycling of Portland cement at scale. Nature 629 , 1055–1061 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07338-8

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How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Choosing a Journal

Things You Should Know

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Understanding the Publishing Process

What’s happening with my paper? The publication process explained

Internal Checks on New Submissions

Peer Review

Revision Decision

Revised Submission Received

Subsequent Peer Review

Preliminary Acceptance

Formal Acceptance and Publication

How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jordan Kruszynski

Understanding the Publishing Process

Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper

Step 2: Finding the Right Journal

Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript

Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process

Step 5: Submitting Your Paper

Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Final Thoughts

Table of Contents

Behind the Scenes: What Does a Research Assistant Do?

How to Write a Research Paper Introduction: Hook, Line, and Sinker

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

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Introduction

Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process

Identify Author Roles Early in the Process

Structure of the Introduction Section

Methods Section

Results Section

Discussion Section

Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines

Data Availability

Acknowledgments

Code Availability

Author information

Corresponding author

Ethics declarations

Additional information

Electronic supplementary material

Rights and permissions

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps

1. Check Whether Your Research Is Publication-Ready

2. Choose An Article Type

3. Choose a Journal

4. Construct Your Paper

4.1 The Title

4.2 The Abstract

4.3 Keywords

4.4 Introduction

4.5 Methods

4.6 Results

4.7 Discussion

4.8 Conclusion

4.9 Acknowledgments and Ethical Statements

4.10 References

5. Decide the Order of Authors

6. Check and Double-Check

7. Submit Your Paper

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