About Chinese Journal of Power Sources

Chinese Journal of Power Sources

The Chinese Journal of Power Sources is a Chinese-language journal on power sources published in Tianjin, China. Its Chinese title is Dianyuan Jishu, and its ISSN is 1002-087X. It covers chemical and physical power sources, including batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors and power-supply technology, and it serves China's battery and electrochemical-energy industry. It is indexed in Scopus. The journal is a long-established specialist title in a sector — electrochemical power sources — that is distinct from the general electrical-engineering journals covered elsewhere in this directory, and from the Journal of Electrochemistry, which is listed separately in this batch. Its subject is not the electricity grid, and not electrical machines in general: it is the devices that store and convert energy electrochemically, and the power supplies that manage and deliver that energy.

That distinction is the key to the journal's identity, and it is easy to miss because its Chinese title, Dianyuan Jishu, can be rendered in English in several ways and because a much better known English-language journal has a similar name. The identifiers that fix this journal are its Chinese title, its ISSN 1002-087X, its Tianjin base and its Scopus record under the title Dianyuan Jishu/Chinese Journal of Power Sources. Any record matching those identifiers, in Chinese or in transliteration, refers to this journal.

A specialist journal for chemical and physical power sources

Power sources, in the sense used by this journal, are devices and systems that provide electrical energy. Chemical power sources convert stored chemical energy directly into electrical energy: primary batteries, which are used once; rechargeable or secondary batteries, which are charged and discharged many times; and fuel cells, which convert a fuel and an oxidant continuously for as long as they are supplied. Physical power sources convert other forms of energy — light, heat or mechanical energy — into electricity, or store energy by physical rather than chemical means, as supercapacitors do by separating charge at an interface. A journal covering both chemical and physical power sources therefore spans electrochemistry, materials science, electrical engineering and device engineering at once.

This scope places the journal at the centre of one of the largest technology industries in China. Batteries and related devices power portable electronics, electric vehicles, grid and renewable-energy storage, uninterruptible power supplies, aerospace and defence systems, medical devices and countless smaller products. Research on them is published by universities, by Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutes, and by the research departments of manufacturers. A dedicated Chinese-language journal gives that community a domestic forum in which device designs, materials, manufacturing processes, test methods and application experience can be reported in the detail that engineers and researchers in the industry require.

Batteries: primary, secondary and the materials inside them

Batteries are the largest part of the journal's territory. Battery research is a chain of interlocking problems. At one end are materials: the cathode and anode materials that store charge, the electrolytes that carry ions between them, the separators that keep the electrodes apart while allowing ions through, and the binders, additives and current collectors that hold a cell together. In the middle are cell design and manufacture: how electrodes are coated, assembled and formed, how cells are sealed and protected, and how their capacity, rate capability, cycle life and safety are tested. At the other end are packs and systems: how cells are combined, monitored, balanced, charged and protected in a battery pack, and how that pack behaves in a vehicle, a storage installation or a portable device.

Different battery chemistries emphasise different parts of that chain. Lead-acid batteries, long used for starting, lighting, ignition and standby power, raise questions of grid corrosion, active-material utilisation and recycling. Nickel-based and alkaline systems have their own electrode and electrolyte problems. Lithium-ion batteries, which dominate portable electronics and electric vehicles, raise questions of cathode stability, anode materials including graphite and silicon-containing materials, electrolyte additives, solid-electrolyte interphases, fast charging, low-temperature performance and thermal safety. Newer systems — including lithium-sulfur, sodium-ion and solid-state batteries — raise still more fundamental materials and interface questions. A power-sources journal is where Chinese researchers report progress on all of these, from a new electrode material's measured capacity to a manufacturing or testing method that can be used in production.

Safety and testing deserve particular mention because they are areas in which a domestic, industry-facing journal has a distinctive role. Standards, test procedures, failure analysis and experience with cells in service are forms of knowledge that are often published in a national language for a national industry, because they are tied to national standards, national manufacturers and national operating conditions. A journal such as this one, serving China's battery and electrochemical-energy industry, is a natural home for that kind of work alongside fundamental research.

Fuel cells and supercapacitors

Fuel cells are the second major device family in the journal's scope. A fuel cell converts the chemical energy of a fuel — hydrogen in the most discussed systems, but also methanol and other fuels in some types — and of oxygen from air into electricity, heat and water, continuously, for as long as fuel is supplied. Fuel-cell research covers catalysts that speed the electrode reactions while using as little precious metal as possible, membranes that conduct ions while separating the fuel and air streams, gas-diffusion and bipolar-plate materials, stack design, water and heat management, durability, and complete fuel-cell systems for vehicles, stationary power and portable use. Because fuel cells sit at the intersection of electrochemistry, catalysis, materials and systems engineering, a journal that already covers batteries is a logical place for fuel-cell work to appear, and the two communities share methods, conferences and institutions in China as elsewhere.

Supercapacitors, also called electrochemical capacitors, form the third family named in the journal's scope. They store energy mainly by separating charge at the interface between an electrode and an electrolyte, rather than by bulk chemical change, which allows them to charge and discharge very quickly and survive very large numbers of cycles, at the cost of storing less energy per unit of weight than a battery. Their research covers electrode materials with very high surface area, including carbons and other porous materials, electrolytes, device design, and hybrid devices that combine capacitor-like and battery-like storage. Supercapacitors are used where high power, rapid response and long cycle life matter — in regenerative braking, power smoothing, backup systems and hybrid energy-storage systems that pair a supercapacitor with a battery. Covering them alongside batteries and fuel cells gives the journal the full spectrum of electrochemical energy devices, from high-power to high-energy, and from storage to continuous conversion.

Power-supply technology

The journal's scope also includes power-supply technology, which is the engineering of the systems that convert, regulate and deliver electrical power to a load. In the context of a power-sources journal, that means chargers for batteries and the charging methods that determine a battery's life and safety; battery management systems that monitor voltage, current, temperature and state of charge and protect cells from overcharge, over-discharge and overheating; converters and inverters that change voltage or convert between direct and alternating current; and uninterruptible and standby power supplies that keep critical equipment running when mains power fails. It also includes the testing and instrumentation by which power sources are characterised.

Including power-supply technology distinguishes the journal from a purely electrochemical title. A battery is only useful as part of a system, and many practical failures and advances occur at the system level: in how a battery is charged, how its state is estimated, how it is protected, and how its power is conditioned for use. By covering devices and the supplies and management systems around them together, the journal follows the whole path from stored chemical energy to usable electrical power, which is how its industry readers actually work.

Tianjin and China's electrochemical-energy industry

The journal is published in Tianjin, a major port city and municipality in northern China, directly administered by the central government and part of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Tianjin has a long industrial history and is a significant centre for manufacturing in northern China. For this directory, the Tianjin base is recorded as the journal's location: Tianjin, China. Locating a specialist journal in an industrial city rather than in a capital-city publishing centre is a pattern seen across Chinese technical publishing, where many industry journals are edited where their institutes and industries are based.

The industry the journal serves is national rather than local. China is the world's largest producer and user of many categories of batteries, and its electrochemical-energy sector includes cell and materials manufacturers, vehicle and electronics industries, renewable-energy and storage developers, testing organisations and research institutes across the country. A Chinese-language journal in this sector therefore speaks to a national professional community: researchers publishing new materials and devices, engineers reporting manufacturing and application experience, and specialists in standards, testing and safety. That community is the journal's readership, and its needs — detailed methods, measurable performance data, and practical engineering experience in Chinese — explain the journal's form and language.

Scopus indexing and the bibliographic record

The journal is indexed in Scopus. A listing of Scopus-indexed electrical and electronic engineering journals in China records Dianyuan Jishu/Chinese Journal of Power Sources with ISSN 1002-087X, indexing in Scopus and country China. Scopus indexing matters for a Chinese-language specialist journal because it makes its articles discoverable and citable through an international database, gives libraries and researchers outside China a stable record of the title, and places the journal in the same bibliographic system as the international journals its readers also use. It does not change the journal's language or its domestic readership, but it connects the journal's record to the global scholarly infrastructure.

Researchers using Scopus or other databases should search by ISSN as well as by title. The journal appears in databases under the transliterated Chinese title Dianyuan Jishu together with the English rendering Chinese Journal of Power Sources, and the two forms refer to the same title. The ISSN, 1002-087X — note the final X, which is a valid ISSN check character — is the reliable identifier. Bibliographic records that give a different ISSN belong to a different journal, however similar the English name may appear.

How to distinguish this journal from similarly named titles

Three distinctions are essential. First and most important, this journal is not the Journal of Power Sources published by Elsevier. That English-language international journal carries ISSN 0378-7753, has been published since 1976, and is an entirely separate title with a different publisher, language, editorial office and history. The similarity of name is a translation coincidence: both journals are about power sources, but the Chinese Journal of Power Sources, Dianyuan Jishu, ISSN 1002-087X, published in Tianjin, is a Chinese journal, and citations to one must never be attributed to the other. Impact factors, rankings and article records for the Elsevier title do not apply to this journal, and vice versa.

Second, the journal is not Dianwang Jishu, Power System Technology, which is a different Chinese journal concerned with the electricity grid and power systems. The Chinese titles differ by one word — Dianyuan, power sources, against Dianwang, power grid — and the transliterations are close enough to cause confusion in databases and reference lists. Their subjects are also different: grid operation and power-system engineering on one side, batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors and power supplies on the other. The ISSN resolves the question in every case.

Third, the journal is distinct from the general electrical-engineering journals covered elsewhere in this directory, and from the Journal of Electrochemistry listed in the same batch, which is an English-language electrochemistry journal sponsored by the Chinese Chemical Society and Xiamen University. Electrochemistry is the underlying science for much of this journal's subject matter, but the Chinese Journal of Power Sources is a device and industry journal — concerned with power sources as products and systems — rather than a general electrochemistry title. Its coverage of the Journal of Electrochemistry's science is therefore complementary, not duplicative.

Why a device-focused, Chinese-language journal matters

The Chinese Journal of Power Sources matters because electrochemical power sources are a technology in which China has both a very large industry and a very large research community, and in which much practical knowledge is exchanged in Chinese. New electrode materials, cell designs, charging methods, management systems, test procedures and manufacturing experience all need a venue in which they can be described fully, with data, for the engineers and researchers who will use them. International English-language journals publish part of that work, usually the most fundamental or most novel part. A domestic specialist journal publishes the broader record, including the applied and industry-facing work on which production and safety depend.

For readers of this directory, the journal also illustrates why title-level care is necessary in Chinese scientific publishing. A single English phrase — power sources — covers an Elsevier international journal, a Tianjin specialist journal and, in transliteration, comes close to a national grid journal. Only the Chinese title, the ISSN and the place of publication separate them reliably. Recorded correctly, as Dianyuan Jishu, ISSN 1002-087X, Tianjin, China, indexed in Scopus and devoted to batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors and power-supply technology, the Chinese Journal of Power Sources takes its proper place as China's specialist journal for the devices that store and deliver electrochemical energy.