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Topic · Geochemistry and Petrology

Coal and Its By-products

Coal and Its By-products is a research topic within Geochemistry and Petrology. Science Explorer counts 17k research works in it since 1950. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the geochemistry, utilization, and environmental impact of coal and its byproducts. It covers topics such as trace elements in coal, fly ash characterization, rare earth elements recovery, alumina extraction, phytoremediation of coal ash disposal sites, and the distribution of heavy metals.

  • Coal Geochemistry
  • Trace Elements
  • Fly Ash
  • Rare Earth Elements
  • Mineralogy
  • Environmental Impact
  • Alumina Recovery
  • Phytoremediation
  • Heavy Metals
  • Element Distribution
Research works
17k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.7k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+18%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
60% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Coal and Its By-products

Which countries lead Coal and Its By-products research?

By volume, China and India publish the most (1.9k and 336 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 1.9k works
  2. 2 India 336 works
  3. 3 United States 283 works
  4. 4 Russia 167 works
  5. 5 Indonesia 145 works
  6. 6 Poland 115 works
  7. 7 Australia 61 works
  8. 8 Japan 55 works
  9. 9 Brazil 55 works
  10. 10 South Korea 54 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 59.8%India: 10.6%United States: 9.0%Russia: 5.3%6 others listed: 15.4%60%largest
China1,888 · 59.8%India336 · 10.6%United States283 · 9.0%Russia167 · 5.3%6 others listed485 · 15.4%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Coal and Its By-products research?

By volume in 2022-now, China University of Mining and Technology publishes the most Coal and Its By-products research, followed by Chinese Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 152 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 99 works
  3. 3 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 72 works
  4. 4 Central South UniversityChina 40 works
  5. 5 Taiyuan University of TechnologyChina 37 works
  6. 6 Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChina 37 works
  7. 7 University of Science and Technology BeijingChina 32 works
  8. 8 Council of Scientific and Industrial ResearchIndia 30 works
  9. 9 Zhejiang UniversityChina 28 works
  10. 10 Xi'an University of Science and TechnologyChina 26 works

Who are the leading researchers in Coal and Its By-products?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Coal and Its By-products include Kostya S. Novoselov, Guangming Zeng and Hua Zhang.

  1. 1 Kostya S. Novoselov United Kingdom 331k citations
  2. 2 Guangming Zeng China 204k citations
  3. 3 Hua Zhang Singapore 196k citations
  4. 4 Seeram Ramakrishna Singapore 186k citations
  5. 5 Qiang Zhang China 184k citations
  6. 6 Han Zhang China 161k citations
  7. 7 Josep Peñuelas Spain 160k citations
  8. 8 Lin Gu China 159k citations
  9. 9 Zhuang Liu China 142k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Coal and Its By-products?

The most cited paper in Coal and Its By-products is "Biochar as a sorbent for contaminant management in soil and water: A review" (Mahtab Ahmad, Anushka Upamali Rajapaksha, Jung Eun Lim et al., 2013), with 4,623 citations. Next come "Biochar physicochemical properties: pyrolysis temperature and feedstock kind effects" (2,883) and "A review on the utilization of fly ash" (2,637).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Biochar as a sorbent for contaminant management in soil and water: A review Mahtab Ahmad, Anushka Upamali Rajapaksha, Jung Eun Lim et al. · Chemosphere 27 Nov 2013 4,623
2 Biochar physicochemical properties: pyrolysis temperature and feedstock kind effects Agnieszka Tomczyk, ZOFIA SOKOŁOWSKA, Patrycja Boguta · Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology Open access 5 Feb 2020 2,883
3 A review on the utilization of fly ash Md. Ahmaruzzaman · Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 29 Dec 2009 2,637
4 A Review of Biochar and Its Use and Function in Soil Saran Sohi, Evelyn S. Krull, Elisa López‐Capél et al. · Advances in agronomy Book chapter 2010 2,250
5 Rare earth elements: A review of applications, occurrence, exploration, analysis, recycling, and environmental impact Vysetti Balaram · Geoscience Frontiers Open access 12 Mar 2019 2,185
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Coal and Its By-products research done?

The largest centres of Coal and Its By-products research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Xuzhou (China), Wuhan (China) and Xi'an (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Xuzhou, Huainan and Dhanbad.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 355 works
  2. 2 XuzhouChina 155 works
  3. 3 WuhanChina 89 works
  4. 4 Xi'anChina 88 works
  5. 5 TaiyuanChina 78 works
  6. 6 NanjingChina 77 works
  7. 7 ChangshaChina 61 works
  8. 8 ShanghaiChina 56 works
  9. 9 HangzhouChina 50 works
  10. 10 GuangzhouChina 47 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. XuzhouCN · 154.8 works41×
  2. HuainanCN · 28.8 works24×
  3. DhanbadIN · 20.6 works24×
  4. TaiyuanCN · 78.4 works11×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Coal and Its By-products than the world average.

See Coal and Its By-products on the map

Where is the best place to study Coal and Its By-products?

Among universities, judged by research, China University of Mining and Technology, Xi'an University of Science and Technology and University of Science and Technology Beijing score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 18.14%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Xi'an University of …University of Scienc…Shandong University …China University of …
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 76.815.5%53.9×152 +28.9%
2Xi'an University of Science and TechnologyChina 72.927.2%32.2×26 +129.3%
3University of Science and Technology BeijingChina 71.521.3%11.5×32 +78.7%
4Shandong University of Science and TechnologyChina 61.917.4%11.6×20 +43.0%
5Taiyuan University of TechnologyChina 60.215.2%25.2×37 +53.2%
6Central South UniversityChina 58.914.1%5.8×40 +75.6%
7Henan Polytechnic UniversityChina 58.922.5%15.7×16 +40.4%
8China University of Geosciences (Beijing)China 50.310.9%18.9×20 +21.3%
9Shandong UniversityChina 50.023.6%2.5×12 +45.4%
10Shanxi UniversityChina 49.713.7%15.8×15 +54.2%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Coal and Its By-products, country by country

Is Coal and Its By-products research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 18% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2024. The fastest-growing topics are Coal and Its By-products.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Coal and Its By-products as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.019% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%Coal and Its By-products0.017% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Coal and Its By-products over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Coal and Its By-products10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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