Author Guidelines

Language

Manuscripts must be written in clear, professional, and academically appropriate English. Authors are responsible for grammar, spelling, scientific terminology, consistency, and readability.

Manuscripts whose language substantially prevents scientific evaluation may be returned to the authors for language improvement before editorial screening or peer review.

Types of Articles

Manuscript Structure

Original research manuscripts should generally follow the structure below. The structure may be adapted for review, methodological, qualitative, or interdisciplinary manuscripts where appropriate.

Title

The title should clearly identify the principal environmental problem, technology, method, material, process, or contribution investigated in the study.

Avoid unnecessarily long titles, unexplained abbreviations, promotional terminology, and vague expressions such as “A Study of” when more specific wording is possible.

Abstract

The abstract should provide a concise and self-contained summary of the research and should normally communicate:

• Environmental or technological problem;
• Research objective;
• Principal methodology;
• Key results;
• Main conclusion; and
• Scientific, environmental, or technological contribution.

Authors are encouraged to report important quantitative findings rather than using only general statements such as “significant improvement was achieved.”

Citations should normally be avoided in the abstract.

Keywords

Authors should provide approximately 4–6 keywords representing the principal pollutants, process, technology, environmental system, method, or application addressed by the research.

Keywords should facilitate international indexing and discoverability and should not simply repeat every word used in the article title.

Introduction

The Introduction should establish the scientific and environmental context of the research. Authors should critically synthesize recent and relevant literature rather than presenting only a sequential list of previous studies.

A strong Introduction should clearly address:

• The environmental or technological problem;
• The significance and scale of the problem;
• Current approaches and their limitations;
• The unresolved knowledge or technology gap;
• The novelty of the proposed research;
• The research objective or hypothesis; and
• The expected scientific or practical contribution.

Materials and Methods

Methods must be described in sufficient detail to permit scholarly assessment and, where reasonably possible, replication or reproduction of the study.

Experimental Research

Authors should report relevant information concerning materials, chemicals, reagents, equipment, experimental configurations, operating conditions, controls, replication, sampling procedures, analytical methods, and statistical analysis.

Pollution Treatment and Remediation Studies

Studies evaluating pollution-control, treatment, or remediation technologies should report, where applicable:

• Initial pollutant concentration;
• Type and characteristics of pollutant;
• Treatment conditions;
• Dosage or material loading;
• pH and temperature;
• Reaction or contact time;
• Removal, conversion, or recovery efficiency;
• Experimental controls;
• Replication and statistical variation;
• Analytical methods;
• Detection or quantification limits where relevant;
• Energy or resource consumption where relevant; and
• Secondary pollution or waste generation where relevant.

Adsorption Studies

Adsorption research should clearly describe adsorbent preparation and characterization, pollutant concentration, solution conditions, equilibrium or kinetic procedures, regeneration where applicable, and the basis used for model fitting.

Water and Wastewater Studies

Authors should provide sufficient information concerning water or wastewater characteristics, sampling source, analytical parameters, treatment configuration, hydraulic or operating conditions, and quality-control procedures.

Field Studies

Field-based research should describe sampling locations, study period, sampling design, sample preservation, measurement procedures, environmental conditions, analytical methods, and relevant permits or permissions.

Numerical and Computational Research

Environmental modelling, simulation, optimization, machine-learning, or artificial-intelligence studies should provide sufficient information concerning:

• Data sources;
• Data preprocessing;
• Model assumptions;
• Algorithms or model architecture;
• Input and output variables;
• Training and testing procedures;
• Validation methods;
• Performance metrics;
• Sensitivity or uncertainty where appropriate; and
• Model limitations.

Life Cycle Assessment

LCA-based studies should clearly describe the functional unit, system boundary, inventory data, assumptions, allocation procedures, impact categories, assessment method, data quality, and limitations.

Results

Results should be presented clearly, logically, and objectively. Authors should avoid unnecessary duplication between text, tables, and figures.

Quantitative studies should report appropriate units, uncertainty, error measures, statistical indicators, confidence intervals, or other measures necessary for scientific interpretation where applicable.

Treatment-performance claims should be supported by actual results rather than qualitative descriptions alone.

Discussion

The Discussion should explain the scientific and environmental significance of the findings. It should not simply repeat the Results section.

Authors should consider:

• Why the observed results occurred;
• How they compare with previous studies;
• Advantages and limitations of the technology;
• Environmental implications;
• Practical or industrial applicability;
• Resource and energy requirements;
• Potential secondary environmental impacts;
• Scale-up considerations where relevant; and
• Future research needs.

Conclusions

Conclusions should directly address the research objectives and emphasize the principal scientific, technological, environmental, or practical findings of the study.

Authors should avoid introducing new results, unsupported claims, or excessive repetition of information already presented in the abstract.

Where relevant, the conclusion may briefly indicate practical implications, limitations, and future research needs.

Figures, Tables and Illustrations

Figures

Graphs, diagrams, maps, photographs, microscopy images, treatment-system illustrations, environmental maps, model outputs, and other figures should be clear and readable.

Tables

Tables should present information efficiently and should not duplicate data already completely presented in figures or the main text.

Captions

Each figure and table must be numbered consecutively, cited in the manuscript, and accompanied by an informative caption.

Image Integrity

Image adjustments must not obscure, remove, introduce, or misrepresent scientifically relevant information.

Copyrighted Material

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted figures, photographs, maps, diagrams, or other materials when required.

Units, Symbols and Scientific Notation

The International System of Units (SI units) should normally be used.

Chemical formulas, pollutant concentrations, symbols, abbreviations, subscripts, superscripts, and scientific terminology must be presented consistently throughout the manuscript.

All abbreviations should be defined at first use.

Environmental and Sustainability Claims

Claims such as sustainable, green, environmentally friendly, eco-friendly, zero-waste, non-toxic, carbon-neutral, or low-carbon should be supported by appropriate scientific evidence.

Authors should consider possible trade-offs, including energy use, raw-material consumption, chemical requirements, secondary pollution, waste generation, regeneration, disposal, and life-cycle impacts.

Promotional or unsupported environmental claims should be avoided.

References

References should be accurate, complete, relevant, and sufficient to establish the scientific context of the study.

Authors are encouraged to prioritize relevant peer-reviewed research and primary scholarly sources. Appropriate recent literature should be included where necessary to demonstrate the current state of knowledge.

Excessive self-citation, irrelevant citation, citation padding, coercive citation, and coordinated citation practices are not acceptable.

References should follow the citation and reference style specified in the current POMIST manuscript template.

Research Data and Reproducibility

Authors should retain the research records and supporting materials required to substantiate the findings reported in the manuscript.

Relevant materials may include:

Where legally, ethically, commercially, and technically appropriate, authors are encouraged to make supporting data available through recognized repositories.

Confidential, proprietary, security-sensitive, or restricted data should not be publicly disclosed in violation of legal or contractual obligations.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual or scholarly contributions to the research and manuscript.

All authors must approve the submitted version and accept responsibility for their contributions.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, purchased authorship, and ghost authorship are not acceptable.

Contributor Roles

Authors are encouraged to identify individual contributions using appropriate contributor roles, such as:

Declarations

Where applicable, manuscripts should include appropriate declarations concerning:

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

AI Cannot Be an Author

Artificial intelligence systems, large language models, chatbots, and other AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Human Responsibility

Human authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, integrity, references, calculations, environmental claims, interpretations, and conclusions of all submitted material.

Disclosure

Substantive use of generative AI in manuscript preparation, coding, data analysis, visualization, image generation, or other research activities should be disclosed transparently.

Verification

AI-generated references, pollutant concentrations, chemical properties, standards, numerical values, scientific claims, and other factual information must be independently verified by the authors.

Fabricated or unverifiable AI-generated references or research data are unacceptable.

Research and Publication Ethics

Authors must comply with the POMIST Publication Ethics and Journal Policies.

The journal does not tolerate:

• Plagiarism;
• Fabrication or falsification;
• Data manipulation;
• Image manipulation;
• Duplicate or redundant publication;
• Inappropriate authorship;
• Citation manipulation;
• Peer-review manipulation;
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest; or
• Other forms of research misconduct.

Environmental Research Ethics

Research should be conducted in ways that minimize unnecessary environmental harm.

Studies involving field sampling, protected environments, hazardous materials, contaminated sites, industrial facilities, biological materials, wastewater, or toxic substances should comply with relevant institutional, safety, environmental, and regulatory requirements.

Required permits, approvals, or institutional authorizations should be reported where applicable.

Peer Review Process

Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening normally undergo double-anonymous peer review.

Authors should prepare the manuscript in accordance with the journal's anonymization requirements where applicable.

Editorial decisions may include:

Reviewer recommendations inform the editorial decision, but the final decision remains the responsibility of the authorized editor.

Revision of Manuscripts

When revisions are requested, authors should submit:

• A revised manuscript;
• A detailed point-by-point response to reviewers;
• A clear explanation of all major changes;
• Scientific justification where a reviewer recommendation has not been adopted;
• Any additional files requested by the editorial office.

Responses should be professional, specific, and evidence-based.

Authors should avoid responding only with statements such as “done,” “corrected,” or “revised” without explaining what was changed.

Submission Checklist