CHINESE JOURNAL OF CATALYSIS (CHINESE VERSION)

About CHINESE JOURNAL OF CATALYSIS (CHINESE VERSION)

Chinese Journal of Catalysis (Chinese Version) — Profile

Chinese Journal of Catalysis — recorded on Journals World under the title CHINESE JOURNAL OF CATALYSIS (CHINESE VERSION) — is China's premier international catalysis journal, founded in 1980 and co-sponsored by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Chemical Society. The parenthetical "Chinese Version" label on this record comes from bibliographic practice: indexing and citation services have long carried the journal's Chinese-language-era output under that qualified form of the title, and researchers' publication lists still cite items from 2010, 2020 and 2022 under "CHINESE JOURNAL OF CATALYSIS (CHINESE VERSION)". The identifiers, however, are those of the one journal: this record carries ISSN 0253-9837 (print) and ISSN 1872-2067 (online), exactly the ISSN pair of the Chinese Journal of Catalysis itself, whose official site is keyed to 0253-9837 and whose article DOIs are built on the 1872-2067 stem (for example 10.1016/S1872-2067(26)65191-1 in volume 90, 2026).

This profile therefore does two things at once. It profiles the journal fully — its history, sponsors, scope, editors, article types, indexing and standing — because that is the publication this record identifies. And it states plainly, in the identity note below, that Journals World also holds a main record titled Chinese Journal of Catalysis (post 5837) sharing the online ISSN 1872-2067, so the pair is flagged for the site's merge/language-edition review rather than silently treated as two unrelated journals. The "Chinese Version" record is kept separate here as a language-edition record, consistent with how the title was presented to indexing services during the journal's Chinese-language years.

History and Standing

The journal was founded in 1980, at the moment when Chinese chemistry was re-engaging systematically with international science after the Cultural Revolution decade, and it grew with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, one of China's strongest catalysis research centres. Elsevier's journal description records that it is the journal of the Dalian Institute and the Chinese Chemical Society, co-sponsored by both, and published by the Elsevier group as a monthly publishing in English. That English-language international form is the journal's present identity: its official site presents current volumes (volume 88 and volume 90 both appear in its 2026 listings) full of English-language reviews and articles from international teams, on topics from single-atom photocatalysts for hydrogen production to carbon dioxide electroreduction.

The earlier, Chinese-language life of the journal is what the "(Chinese Version)" qualifier preserves. For much of its history the journal served a primarily Chinese readership in Chinese, and citation services distinguished that output accordingly; the qualifier survives in bibliographic records and in the publication lists of active researchers, whose Chinese Journal of Catalysis papers from as recently as 2022 are listed under the qualified title. Authors citing older work should expect to meet both forms of the title and should not treat them as evidence of two different journals.

On standing, Elsevier's own description states that the journal "currently ranks among the top two journals in Applied Chemistry" and describes it as China's premier international journal in the chemical sciences; a bookseller's summary of the same official description adds that it has been ranked among the top two chemistry journals in China by SCI impact factor over a five-year span and that it received the Second Class Prize of the National Journal Awards in 2005. Those are the publisher's characterisations, attributed here as such. Independent confirmation of elite standing comes from SCImago-derived data: according to SCImago figures republished by ResearchBite (2022 data), the journal held an SJR of 2.551, an h-index of 89 and a Q1 position in Catalysis and in Chemistry (miscellaneous), with 8,516 citations received in the preceding three years. More recent aggregator figures differ in detail — unsurprising for a journal whose citation counts have risen steeply — so any single current number should be verified in Journal Citation Reports or Scopus before being quoted.

Scope

Elsevier's aims-and-scope statement defines the territory precisely. The journal publishes timely, rigorously reviewed contributions covering all areas of catalysis, in the article forms Reviews, Accounts, Communications, Articles, Highlights, Perspectives and Viewpoints. Its stated scope includes: new trends in catalysis for applications in energy production, environmental protection, and the preparation of new materials, petroleum chemicals and fine chemicals; the scientific foundations for the preparation and activation of catalysts of commercial interest or their representative models; spectroscopic methods for structural characterisation, especially in situ characterisation; new theoretical methods of potential practical interest and impact in the science and applications of catalysis and catalytic reactions; the relationship between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis; and theoretical studies on the structure and reactivity of catalysts. It also accepts contributions on photocatalysis, biocatalysis, surface science and catalysis-related chemical kinetics. The journal's own guide for authors gives the same list and adds heterogeneous, homogeneous and biocatalysis, surface chemistry and chemical kinetics as the journal's founding subject frame.

In practice, the 2026 issues on the official site show that scope operating at full width: noble and earth-abundant single-atom photocatalysts for hydrogen; proton hydrogenation in neutral media; porphyrin electrocatalysts under operational conditions; metal clusters for carbon–nitrogen bond synthesis; interfacial reconstruction in platinum/titania catalysts for carbon monoxide oxidation; boron-mediated interfacial water orientation for carbon dioxide reduction to methane; and tandem catalysts converting carbon dioxide to propylene. Energy conversion, environmental remediation and sustainable chemical production dominate, exactly as the scope statement promises.

Article Types and Editorial Practice

The journal's guide for authors distinguishes its manuscript types in detail. Reviews survey topics of current interest with entire, systematic and important information on recent progress; a critically selected treatment is wanted rather than a complete literature survey, unsolved problems and possible developments should be discussed, authors should themselves have published in the field, and a Review's references should number more than 80. Communications rapidly report studies with significant innovation and major academic value, are limited to three journal pages (approximately 15,000 characters), and are published as soon as possible after acceptance. Articles are original full-text reports on innovative, systematic and completed research. Alongside these sit Accounts, Highlights, Perspectives and Viewpoints. The journal also publishes three to four themed special issues a year on hot topics, guest-edited by prominent catalysis scientists, according to the publisher's description.

Editors-in-Chief are Prof. Can Li and Prof. Tao Zhang, per Elsevier's guide for authors — both are senior figures at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. (One aggregator lists Can Li alone; the Elsevier statement naming both is the authoritative one and is used here.)

Indexing

The journal's own guide for authors lists its abstracting and indexing coverage: Abstract Journals (VINITI), Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Catalysts & Catalysed Reactions (Royal Society of Chemistry), Current Contents / Engineering, Computing and Technology, Chemical Abstracts Service / SciFinder, Chemistry Citation Index, EI Compendex, the Japan Information Center of Science and Technology service, Journal Citation Reports / Science Edition, Science Citation Index Expanded, SCOPUS and Web of Science, together with the principal Chinese indexing systems. A Korean university library record for the journal independently shows coverage listings across JCR, SJR, CiteScore, SCIE, Current Contents and Scopus, consistent with the journal's own list.

Metrics — Read with Attribution

Because this journal's citation performance has climbed rapidly, secondary sources disagree and date quickly. According to SCImago data for 2022 (republished by ResearchBite), the journal's SJR was 2.551, its overall rank 848, its h-index 89 and its best quartile Q1. Research.com's SCImago-derived page reports a higher h-index of 117 and SJR of 3.373 from a later data pull. Impact-factor figures quoted by aggregator sites for recent years fall in the mid-to-high teens; the exact figure for any given year must be taken from Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports, and this profile deliberately does not present an aggregator number as the journal's official impact factor. What is not in doubt, on any source, is the quartile: the journal sits in Q1 in catalysis and applied chemistry and is, by the publisher's own statement, among the top two journals in Applied Chemistry.

Author Guidance

Authors submit through Elsevier's systems for the journal, following the guide for authors on ScienceDirect and on the journal's official site. Practical points that can be stated from official guidance: choose the manuscript type deliberately, since Communications carry the three-page limit and Reviews carry the expectation of more than 80 references and an established author record in the field; expect rigorous peer review of original manuscripts across all areas of catalysis; and note the journal's emphasis on work that defines new concepts in both fundamental issues and practical applications. An article processing charge for this journal is not publicly disclosed in the sources consulted for this profile — the journal operates primarily as a subscription title with Elsevier — and authors needing the current open-access fee should confirm it in the live guide for authors rather than rely on third-party listings, several of which could not be verified against the publisher.

Identity Note: The Twin Record

Journals World post 5837, titled Chinese Journal of Catalysis, carries ISSN 1872-2067 — the same online ISSN as this record — and is itself still a short template profile. This post's record carries both 0253-9837 and 1872-2067. The overlap is reported here as a duplicate/language-edition pair for the site's merge review: the two records identify one journal, with this record preserving the "(Chinese Version)" title form used by indexing services for the journal's Chinese-language output. No second, separate "Chinese version" journal with different ISSNs could be verified in official sources.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the "Chinese Version" a different journal from the Chinese Journal of Catalysis? No separate journal could be verified. The ISSNs are identical (0253-9837 and 1872-2067); the qualifier is the form under which indexing and citation services carried the journal's Chinese-language-era output, and it persists in researchers' bibliographies.

Who sponsors and publishes the journal? It is co-sponsored by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Chemical Society, and published by the Elsevier group; SCImago-derived records name Science Press as the publishing house.

When was it founded and how often does it appear? Founded in 1980; monthly.

What does it publish? Original, rigorously reviewed work across all of catalysis — heterogeneous, homogeneous, photo-, electro- and biocatalysis, surface science and kinetics — as Reviews, Accounts, Communications, Articles, Highlights, Perspectives and Viewpoints, plus three to four guest-edited special issues a year.

Who edits it? Editors-in-Chief Prof. Can Li and Prof. Tao Zhang, per Elsevier.

Is it a Q1 journal? Yes — Q1 in Catalysis and Chemistry (miscellaneous) on SCImago data, and described by its publisher as among the top two journals in Applied Chemistry.

The Research Landscape the Journal Serves

Catalysis sits at the junction of chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science and energy technology, and the journal's scope maps that junction deliberately. Heterogeneous catalysis — reactions on solid surfaces — underpins refining, bulk chemical manufacture and emissions control; homogeneous catalysis, in solution, drives much of fine-chemical and pharmaceutical synthesis; photocatalysis and electrocatalysis have become central to solar fuels, green hydrogen and carbon-dioxide utilisation; biocatalysis brings enzymatic selectivity into industrial processes; and surface science plus theory supply the mechanistic understanding that lets the other branches design rather than merely screen. A journal that insists on covering all of these together, as this one's scope statement does, is making an editorial claim: that the field advances by transfer between its branches, and that a spectroscopic method developed for a refinery catalyst may be the method that explains a photocatalyst.

The sponsoring institute reinforces that breadth. The Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics is one of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' major chemistry institutes, with historic strengths in catalysis, chemical engineering and energy research, and the Chinese Chemical Society is the country's national professional society for chemists. A journal co-sponsored by an institute and a society, and published internationally by Elsevier, occupies three worlds at once — the laboratory, the profession and the global literature — which helps explain both its Chinese base (the publisher describes a broad domestic readership and a role in scientific exchange between researchers, institutions and enterprises in China and abroad) and its thoroughly international current contents, in which the 2026 volumes carry teams and topics from well beyond China.

For readers navigating the journal, three habits help. First, use the article-type signals: a Perspective or Viewpoint is the editors' invitation to see where a subfield is heading; a Communication is a claim of significant innovation published fast and short; an Article is the full, systematic account. Second, watch the special issues: three to four guest-edited themed issues a year mark the topics the field itself judges hottest, and their introductions are efficient maps of a fast-moving area. Third, treat the metrics comparatively rather than absolutely: this journal's citation indicators have moved quickly, aggregator snapshots disagree, and the stable facts — Q1 placement in catalysis and applied chemistry, the publisher's top-two-in-Applied-Chemistry characterisation, and indexing across SCIE, Scopus, CAS and EI Compendex — carry more weight than any single year's number quoted without its source and date.

Finally, the "(Chinese Version)" question that this record raises is itself instructive about how scholarly records work. Titles accrete qualifiers as they pass through languages, indexing regimes and citation databases; the qualifier preserved here documents the journal's passage from a primarily Chinese-language publication to an English-language international one. Keeping the record, with the relationship stated openly, serves readers better than either silently merging it away or pretending a second journal exists — which is why this profile profiles the one journal, names the twin record, and leaves the pair flagged for the site's editors.

A note on editions and citation practice closes the identity discussion. Because the journal's DOIs, volumes and pagination are continuous across its language history — the 2026 volumes are numbered in the eighties and nineties of the same sequence that began in 1980 — a citation is locatable from its volume, pages and DOI regardless of which form of the title a bibliography happens to print. Authors preparing reference lists should copy the title as it appears on the article itself, give the DOI built on the 1872-2067 stem, and resist the temptation to "correct" a Chinese Version citation into the unqualified title or vice versa: database matching depends on the printed form, and the two forms in the wild are a fact of the journal's history, not an error to be tidied away. Indexers encountering this Journals World pair should likewise treat the qualifier as provenance metadata — evidence of which segment of the run a record describes — rather than as a separate serial.

Sources

• Chinese Journal of Catalysis official site (cjcatal.com), keyed to ISSN 0253-9837: current volumes, article content and DOI stem 1872-2067.
• Elsevier / ScienceDirect — Guide for Authors, Chinese Journal of Catalysis (ISSN 1872-2067): founding (1980), sponsors, monthly English publication, article types, Editors-in-Chief Can Li and Tao Zhang, full scope list.
• Elsevier Shop journal page for ISSN 1872-2067: same official journal description.
• Chinese Journal of Catalysis Guide to Authors (cjcatal.com): indexing list in full; Review requirements (more than 80 references); Communications limit (3 pages, ~15,000 characters).
• Schweitzer-online journal description: premier standing, special issues (3–4 per year), 2005 National Journal Award (Second Class Prize).
• SCImago data as republished by ResearchBite (2022): SJR 2.551, h-index 89, Q1, rank 848; Research.com SCImago-derived page: h-index 117, SJR 3.373 (later pull) — both attributed and dated in the text.
• Korea University ScholarWorks journal record: print ISSN 0253-9837, Science Press, JCR/SCIE/Scopus coverage.
• Researcher publication lists (Research.com; Academia.edu) citing items under "CHINESE JOURNAL OF CATALYSIS (CHINESE VERSION)" for 2010, 2020 and 2022.
• Journals World post records 333932 and 5837 (titles, slugs and ISSNs as stored, fetched directly by post ID).