The following are required for submission:

• Make sure the manuscript is suitable for this journal via reading the Aims & Scope;
• Make sure that issues about publication ethics have been considered;
• Make sure that all authors have approved of the submission.

2.1. Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address

When submitting your manuscript, please make sure that the following items have been prepared as carefully as possible:

• Cover letter (mandatory);
• Manuscript prepared based on the Journal’s template (mandatory);
• Author biography and graphical abstract (mandatory);
• Declaration of competing interest (mandatory);
• Author contributions (mandatory);
• All figures in individual electronic files (optional);
• Supplementary information (optional);
• Other necessary materials not for review (optional).

Further considerations

• Manuscript has been spell-checked and grammar checked;
• References are in the correct format;
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa;
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web);
• Colored passport-type photos and short biographies of the first author(s) and corresponding author(s) are given after the reference list.

If you have any questions about the process, please get in touch with the journal Editorial Office directly at mrse@mater-rep.com.

2.2. How to Submit

Our online submission system (https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/mrse) guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondences, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, are sent by e-mail.

2.3. Reviewer Recommendation

Authors could suggest several potential reviewers by providing their names and institutional e-mail addresses. Authors should not suggest reviewers who are colleagues, or who have co-authored or collaborated with you during the last three years. Editors would not invite reviewers who have potential competing interests with the authors.

Note: the editor decides whether or not to invite the reviewers you suggested.

3.1. Language

Please write the text in good English. Possible grammatical or spelling errors should be carefully avoided, making the submissions conform to accepted standards of written technical English. The Journal’s editors are not responsible for correcting errors in grammar or spelling. Manuscripts that require extensive English revision may be rejected without review.

3.2. Length of manuscripts

There are no strict limits on the number of published pages for both research and review articles. Nevertheless, authors are asked to make the manuscript as concise as possible, and suggestions for manuscripts length can be found in specific descriptions of article types.

3.3. Article types

Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials publishes four types of papers: Progress Report, Review, Communication, and Original Research Report.

A Progress Report is a critically selected overview of the latest progress in important research fields (especially in new emerging fields) of energy materials, providing insight, selectivity, criticism, unique opinion, and even special vision, rather than a comprehensive article. The paper should have a short and unreferenced abstract. The main text is suggested to be at least 6,000 words in length (excluding abstract, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information), be divided into reasonable sections with succinct topical headings, and contain 5-10 display items (figures, tables). Illustrations are strongly encouraged. In addition, 4-8 keywords should be given.

A Review is a general overview of a particular field or topic, giving a summary of recent developments, as well as proposing specific viewpoints. The scope of a Review should be broad enough that it is not dominated by the work of a handful of research groups, and particularly not by the author's own work. The article should have an unreferenced abstract. The main text is suggested to be at least 8,000 words in length (excluding abstract, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information), be divided into reasonable sections with succinct topical headings, and include 10-20 display items (figures, tables). Illustrations are strongly encouraged. In addition, 4-8 keywords should be given.

A Communication is a short report of outstanding findings in a novel study in the specific field(s) of energy materials. It also has general implications and appeals to specialists in other fields. The major findings presented in a Communication or its significant part should not have appeared in any other publication in-print or online. The paper should have a short and unreferenced abstract which contains a brief account of the background and rationale of the work, and a statement of the major conclusions that can be drawn. The main text is suggested to be 2,000-3,000 words in length (excluding abstract, experimental section, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information) unless its high quality deserves particular consideration, contains 3-5 display items (figures, tables), and have no topical heading. In addition, 3-5 keywords should be given.

An Original Research Report is a full-length article, that provides an in-depth and multi-faceted report about outstanding findings in a novel study in the specific field(s) of energy materials. It also has general implications and appeals to specialists in other fields. The major findings presented in an Original Research Report or its significant part should not have appeared in any other publication in-print or online. The article should have an unreferenced abstract which contains an account of the background and rationale of the work, and a statement of the major conclusions that can be drawn. The main text is suggested to be 4,000-7,000 words in length (excluding abstract, experimental section, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information), contain 5-10 display items (figures, tables), and be divided into reasonable sections with succinct topical headings, in which the introduction section should summarize the background (some repetition with the abstract is acceptable) and present the main conclusions or findings of the study. In addition, 4-8 keywords should be given.

3.4. Text formatting

For submission in Microsoft Word, use a normal, plain font (e.g., 12-point Times New Roman), one space line, and two columns for text. Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages. Do not use field functions. Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar. Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables. Use the equation editor or MathType for equations. Note: If you use Word 2007, do not create the equations with the default equation editor but use MathType instead.

Please follow this order to type the manuscript: cover letter, title page, abstract, keywords, main text (including tables and figures), appendix (if necessary), acknowledgements, declaration of competing interest, author contributions (not required for front-matter articles), references, author biography, graphical abstract, and supplementary information (if necessary).

4.1. Cover letter

All submissions must include a cover letter that includes a convincing statement of the novelty and significance of the work and the relevance to the aims and scope of Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials. This statement should not be a duplicate of the submission’s abstract. If the submission has been rejected previously by any journal, including Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials, the cover letter should include the manuscript's previous submission history and response to referees' comments, as an appendix to the cover letter.

If any supplementary information (SI) is submitted together with the manuscript, a list of the SI should be given as an appendix to the cover letter. The authors should explain briefly why these SI should be provided and why these SI cannot be incorporated into the main body of the manuscript.

4.2. Title page

The title page should include:

A concise and informative title: The title should be succinct, objective, interesting and grammatically correct. Titles are often used in information retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

Author names and affiliations: Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author: Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, as well as post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.

*Changes to the author list between initial submission and revision must be accompanied by an explanatory statement in the cover letter for the revision and a completed "Change in Authorship Request" form, which will be sent by the Journal Editorial Office. These changes will be accepted at the discretion of the Editor and may lead to rejection of the manuscript. Changes of authorship or the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

4.3. Abstract and keywords

A concise and factual abstract is needed for regular research articles and review articles to state the main purpose and research questions of the study, the methods, the main results, and the key conclusions. Abstract should be 120–250 words in length. No footnotes, references, figures, or tables may appear in the abstract.

Immediately after the abstract, please provide 4–6 keywords, which can be used for indexing purpose.

4.4. Main body

Manuscripts describing original research typically include the following sections: Introduction; Methods; Results and discussion; and Conclusions. In submissions that have a significant theoretical or mathematical component, a section for the description of the analytical procedures may be required.

Heading/section levels (numbered). For regular research articles and review articles, please use the decimal system of headings. Please divide the article into clearly defined and consecutively numbered sections and subsections. Sections should be numbered 1, 2, etc. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, …), 1.2, etc. Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to “the text”. Each section and subsection should be given a brief heading and each heading should appear on its own separate line. Review articles should begin with an Introduction section and end with a Conclusions or Summary section.

Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be defined at the point of first use and be used consistently thereafter. Abbreviations defined in the Abstract should be re-defined in the main text of the submission.

Footnotes. Essential footnotes to the text should be numbered consecutively and placed at the bottom of the page to which they refer. Footnotes to the table should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks) and placed immediately below the table.

Units. Please follow internationally accepted rules and conventions such as those defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in supplementary information.

Formulae and symbols. Formulae, symbols, and all subscripts, superscripts, Greek letters, and other characters must be legible and carefully checked. Standard mathematical notation should be used. All symbols used in the manuscript must be explained. If necessary, a list of symbols may be provided and placed at the end of the Main body.

Equations. Numbering consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text), and referring the equation with Eq. (1), Eq. (2) … in the text. For the simple formulae that appear in the line of normal text, please use solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., x/y. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by “exp”. In principle, variables should be presented in italics.

Figures. All the figures, including data plots, photographs, diagrammatic sketches, flow charts, etc., should be embedded, approximately in their final sizes, in the main text near the paragraph in which they are first referenced, not on separate page(s) at the end. All figures should be numbered using Arab numerals (figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters) and supplied with a figure caption. Please make sure that all elements found in the figure are identified in the caption. Figures should always be cited in text, such as Fig. 1, Fig. 2 … in consecutive numerical order. Color figures will remain in color in both the printed version and the online version of the journal, at no cost. The authors are encouraged to use color figures in the submitted manuscript.

Tables. All tables should be numbered using Arab numerals and supplied with a table title that explains clearly and concisely the components of the table. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (for example, in figures). Tables should always be cited in the text, such as Table 1, Table 2 … in consecutive numerical order.

Appendix. An appendix, if needed, is presented without numbers. If there are two or more appendices, they should be numbered consecutively. Equations in appendices should be designated differently from those in the main body of the manuscript, e.g., (A1), (A2), etc. In each appendix, equations should be numbered separately.

Acknowledgements. The content of Acknowledgements is a list of people who contributed to the work in the manuscript but are not named in the author list, and a list of funding sources that supported the research presented. The names of funding organizations should be written in full. Do not include acknowledgements on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

Declaration of competing interest. All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal, or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.

Editorial Board Members and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. Where an Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If no conflict exists, the authors should state: “The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in this work”.

Author contribution statement. Authors are required to include a statement to specify the contributions of each co-author. CRediT author statement (https://credit.niso.org/) is recommended to use.

Citations & references.

(1) Citation in text

Number the references of your manuscript consecutively and make sure their first appearances in the main text (including tables and figure captions) are in ascending sequence. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Use reference numbers typed between square brackets to form reference symbols both in the main text and in the reference list. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication". Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

(2) Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

(3) Preprint references

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

(4) Reference style

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

Example: '..... as demonstrated ^{[3, 6]}. Barnaby and Jones ^[8] obtained a different result ....'

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Journal publication

[1] Duxson, P., Provis, J. L., Lukey, G. C., et al. The role of inorganic polymer technology in the development of ‘green concrete’. Cement and Concrete Research, 2007, 37(12): 1590-1597.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2007.08.018

Journal publication with an article number

[2] Likes, L., Markandeya, A., Haider, M. M., et al. Recycled concrete and brick powders as supplements to Portland cement for more sustainable concrete. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2022, 364, 132651.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132651

[3] Zhu, L., Lyu, H. X., Liu, Y., et al. Binary solid wastes derived clinker: Raw feed system design validation and thermodynamic simulation investigation. Cement and Concrete Research, 2024, 183, 107597.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2024.107597

Book (authored)

[4] Makul, N. Recycled Aggregate Concrete: Technology and Properties, 1st Ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press. 2023: 266–272.

Book chapter

[5] Villagrán-Zaccardi, Y., Sosa, E., Carrizo, L., et al. Use of recycled fines from waste concrete as an admixture in new concrete. In: The Structural Integrity of Recycled Aggregate Concrete Produced with Fillers and Pozzolans, Awoyera, P. O., Thomas, C., Kirgiz, M. S., Eds. Duxford: Woodhead Publishing, 2022: 39-65.

Paper in proceedings

[6] Chen, W., Zhu, Z. Synthesis and characterization of metakaolin modified waste concrete-based geopolymer. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Asia Urban GeoEngineering, 2018: 530-544.

Thesis or Dissertation

[8] Tang, Z. Design and properties of sustainable geopolymeric recycled aggregate concrete. Ph.D. Dissertation. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, 2021.

Patent

[9] Skocek, J., Zajac, M., Ben Haha, M., et al. Process and device for carbonating concrete waste and/or sequestering CO. U.S. Patent 11753340, September 12, 2023.

Article by DOI

[10] Carvalho, I. C., Dai, X. D., Kirchheim, A. P., et al. Early-age structural build-up and rheological assessment of alkali-activated slag-red clay brick waste pastes: Influence of silica modulus and precursors proportions. Cement and Concrete Composites, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2024.105730.

Web reference

[11] Information on https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/brief/solid-waste-management. (cited 26 Aug. 2024).

Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Author biography. Colored passport-type photos and short biographies of the first author(s) and corresponding author(s) are mandatory and should be given after the reference list (i.e. at the end of the manuscript file). Each biography (100 words in maximum) must spotlight the author's career to-date and introduce his/her current research interests, in which awards, number of publications, number of patents, etc. should be excluded.

Graphical abstract. Please prepare a graphical abstract image separately along with your manuscript file. The graphical abstract is mandatory. It summarizes the major contents of the manuscript in a concise, pictorial form. The image should be 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally larger in resolution, and distinguishable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi.

If Supplementary Information (SI) is submitted, it will be published as received from the authors without any conversion, editing, or reformatting. SI is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusions of a paper. Please note that the aims of SI are only to provide additional, rather than necessary, support for the conclusions of the paper. The authors are suggested to incorporate all the necessary information in the main text of the manuscript in order that the readers can understand the manuscript content easily and completely without the aid of the SI. If supplying any SI, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables (e.g., Fig. S1 in the SI). Besides, a paragraph should be added before the “References” section (e.g., Supplementary Information: Supplementary material (add a brief description) is available in the online version of this article).

Information that cannot be printed, such as animations, video clips, sound recordings, etc., should be supplied always as electronic files in MP4 format.

Information that can be printed, such as text, figures, tables, etc., should be integrated into one electronic file in Word format.

All the figures, including data plots, photographs, diagrammatic sketches, flow charts, etc., should be embedded, approximately in their final sizes, in the main text near the paragraph in which they are first referenced, not on separate page(s) at the end.

Electronic figure submission

• If a figure comprises several parts, it is better to integrate all the parts into a single
• When submitting the figures in separate files, name figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.jpg.

Please do not supply: (i) files that are optimized for screen use because these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors; (ii) files that are too low in resolution; (iii) graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Line arts

• Definition: black and white graphic with no shading.
• Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
• All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
• Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.

Data plots

• Definition: graphical representation of data to reveal relationships between variables.
• Plots should follow guidelines for line art with font sizes and file resolution. All plots should use a white background.
• Simple geometric symbols (e.g., open and filled triangles, squares, circles, etc.,) should be used for data points, with capped error bars to denote the precision of measurements.
• Axes should be labeled with the appropriate units included in parentheses.
• The use of Microsoft Excel to generate plots is strongly discouraged.

Halftone arts

• Halftone arts include micrographs, photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
• If any magnification is used in the micrographs or photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves. Microscope-generated scale bars, particularly "tick-mark" style ones, typically reproduce poorly and should be replaced by larger, more legible scale bars. Magnifications should not be given (e.g., 1000×).
• Screenshots of data from energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (ATM), etc., are not Data must be plotted in a graphing program.
• Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
• The aspect ratio of any images should not be altered.

Figure lettering

• Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 8–12 pt.
• Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal.
• Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
• Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure numbering and captions                                                                                                         

• All figures should be numbered using Arab numerals (figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters).
• Figures should always be cited in text, such as Fig. 1, Fig. 2, in consecutive numerical order.
• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
• Please make sure that all elements found in the figure are identified in the caption.

Figure placement and size

• When preparing figures, please size figures to fit in the column width.
• The figure should be not wider than 80 mm for single-column figures or 170 mm for double-column figures, and not taller than 230 mm.

The Journal follows a single-blind reviewing procedure. The benefit of single-blind peer review is that it is the traditional model of peer review that many reviewers are comfortable with, and it facilitates a dispassionate critique of a manuscript. A regular review process for each submitted manuscript consists of three stages: initial check, preliminary assessment and peer review.

Initial check

The submitted manuscript will be initially checked by the handling editor. At this stage, a decision of “Reject without review” would be made for the submissions which do not meet the guidelines set out in this document. In addition, all manuscripts submitted to Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials will be screened for plagiarism by Crossref Similarity Check. Those with high overlap scores (higher than 20%) may also be rejected directly without further review. We are sorry that we cannot provide a detailed report for the text overlap check.

Preliminary assessment

Manuscripts that pass through the initial check will be preliminarily assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and then the invited assistant editors. At this stage, the Editor-in-Chief has sole discretion, with the help of the invited assistant editors, on whether to send the manuscript for peer review or reject it without review.

Special emphasis will be paid to the readability and attractiveness of the submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts without an attractive abstract and/or a comprehensive and convincing introduction will be rejected at this stage without detailed comments.

Peer review

Around four reviewers will be invited for peer review. When a submission has at least two useable reports, the Editor-in-Chief will use the reviewers’ comments to decide whether to accept the manuscript for publication, return it for revision (major or minor), or reject it. All articles are evaluated by fit with the mission statement of the Journal, perceived quality and novelty of the work, potential interest to the Journal’s readership, and the standard of presentation (including the standard of technical written English and the quality of figures).

7.1. Open Access Licence Agreement

All articles in Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials will be published on an Open-Access model. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete an 'Open Access Licence Agreement', which will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

7.2. Article Processing Charge

For all papers submitted before the 31^st of December 2026, the Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived making it free to submit to the journal.

7.3. Just Accepted

Accepted papers will be posted online prior to technical editing, formatting for publication, and author proofing as “Just Accepted” papers. This is intended to expedite publication and increase the impact of accepted papers. Just accepted papers will be accessible and citable with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI®).

7.4. Proof reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables, and figures. Authors will have chance to double check symbols, formulas, and figure legends before final publication, for these may accidentally have been changed during typesetting. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title, and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editors-in-Chief. After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

7.5. Online first

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After the release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Use of this template will save time in the review and production processes and will expedite publication. However, the use of the template is not a requirement for submission.