Expectations for Manuscripts in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering: Scope Summary and Call for Creativity

T year, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (ACS SCE) has published a series of editorials describing the scope of the journal in topical areas that span the fields addressed by the majority of manuscripts submitted to the journal. The editorials have focused on sustainable materials, catalysis, nanoscience and nanotechnology, industrial ecology, biomass feedstocks and processing, solvents, photochemistry and photoelectrochemistry, and electrochemistry for energy conversion and storage. The desirable features sought by our editors in manuscripts were highlighted, and attributes that commonly deter manuscripts from being sent for peer review were described. We hope that potential authors have found this information helpful. As we close this series of editorials, we wish to emphasize that the topical areas described in this series of editorials do not represent the entire scope of ACS SCE. We remind authors that we welcome manuscripts that describe innovations in the rapidly evolving field of sustainable chemistry and engineering in its broadest context. The Chair of our Editorial Advisory Board, Paul Anastas, identified several emerging areas of green chemistry and green engineering research in his editorial titled “Worthy and Necessary Challenges”. These include topics such as ubiquitous and interconnected sensors, big-data analytics and synthetics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, synthetic biology and ease of genetic manipulation, and distributed manufacturing and 3-D/4-D printing of components for green manufacturing or products. Manuscripts in these specific areas are certainly welcome, but there are other areas, too numerous to list, that are also encouraged. Broadly, contributions that stem from a nexus of topical areas are welcomed. A simple search of published articles in ACS SCE that include the word “nexus” returns hundreds of papers. For example, many papers have reported quantitative models describing coupled food, energy, air, and water systems. We welcome manuscripts that characterize the features of a nexus between topical areas and that explore how the sustainability of coupled systems might be improved. We also broadly encourage the creativity of authors in defining new topics for ACS SCE. More specifically, what we mean by creativity was well articulated by John Prausnitz, a distinguished researcher and educator from the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, who wrote that “A creative act is one where two ideas or concepts, previously believed to be totally separate, are for the first time, shown to be closely related.” He went on to argue that “the essence of creativity-tying together two separate ideas, need not be limited to those cases where both ideas come from the world of science.” He gave, as one of several examples, Bohr’s description of the origin of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which Bohr attributed to spectroscopy and the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. Prausnitz used this example, and others, to suggest that “In any one field of human endeavor, progress is inevitably attained by borrowing from another.” We embrace this concept as we report progress in green chemistry and green engineering, welcoming manuscripts that advance these disciplines by drawing from other fields. On behalf of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, we look forward to your comments, and we invite your creative manuscripts. David T. Allen, Editor-in-Chief orcid.org/0000-0001-66468755 D. Julie Carrier, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00033322-4660 Jingwen Chen, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00025756-3336 Nicholas Gathergood, Associate Editor orcid.org/2-9398-9799 Jinlong Gong, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-0001-7263318X Hongxian Han, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00022522-1817 King Kuok (Mimi) Hii, Associate Editor orcid.org/2-1163-0505 Bing-Joe Hwang, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00023873-2149 Asha Liza James, Development Editor Peter Licence, Executive Editor orcid.org/0000-00032992-0153 Michael Meier, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00024448-5279 Audrey Moores, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00031259-913X Ryuhei Nakamura, Associate Editor orcid.org/0000-00030743-8534