About Paper and Biomaterials

Paper and Biomaterials

Paper and Biomaterials (PBM) is an English-language, open-access journal of pulp, paper and bio-based materials, published in Beijing, China, by the China Pulp and Paper Magazines Publisher, with its editorial community centred on the China National Pulp and Paper Research Institute. It appears on SciOpen, the publishing platform of Tsinghua University Press, and is published quarterly. Its print ISSN is 2096-2355. Volume 2 appeared in 2017 and Volume 8 in 2023, and the journal's archive on SciOpen runs from 2018 through the present in full open access. It covers cellulose and lignin chemistry, nanocellulose, hemicellulose, paper coatings and the wider science of biomass-derived materials — the research base of an industry converting itself from commodity paper towards advanced bio-based materials.

Publisher and editorial home

The journal is published in Beijing by the China Pulp and Paper Magazines Publisher, the specialist publishing house for China's pulp and paper sector, and its editorial office is associated with the China National Pulp and Paper Research Institute — whose own researchers appear in its pages, for example in studies of nanofibrillated cellulose in waterborne coatings authored from the institute's Beijing address. Articles carry the imprint line of the Paper and Biomaterials Editorial Board. Distribution is through SciOpen, Tsinghua University Press's international journal platform, which hosts the journal's full archive with article-level DOIs. The 2018–2020 articles carry DOIs in the 10.12103 and 10.26599 families used by the platform, and articles are published under Creative Commons licences — CC BY-NC-ND in its earlier volumes, with later articles recorded under Creative Commons Attribution terms on the platform.

Scope and subject coverage

As its title declares, the journal covers two connected territories: paper — pulp production, bleaching, papermaking, coatings and the properties of paper products — and biomaterials, the growing science of materials derived from cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose and other biomass components. Its published articles show the range concretely. Pulping and bleaching research includes studies of magnesium-based alkaline peroxide bleaching of poplar chemi-thermomechanical pulp and its effects on bulk, optical and physical properties and effluent characteristics. Cellulose science includes work on TEMPO-oxidised cellulose films and their thermal treatment. Lignin chemistry includes methods for preparing aminated lignin through etherification and amination. Review coverage includes extraction, purification and applications of hemicellulose, and the preparation, structural properties and applications of nanocellulose, including its uses in the food industry.

Nanocellulose and the biomaterials turn

A distinctive thread in the journal is nanocellulose — cellulose reduced to nanoscale fibres or crystals with unusual strength, transparency and barrier properties. The journal has published research on nanofibrillated cellulose as a functional additive, including a comparison of nanofibrillated cellulose and hydroxyethyl cellulose in improving the storage stability of waterborne coatings, and review work surveying nanocellulose preparation and characterisation with bibliometric analysis of the field's hotspots. Cellulose-based films for ultraviolet shielding and for use as cathode interfacial layers in organic solar cells also appear in its pages. This is the journal's forward edge: the same fibre science that underpinned papermaking, redirected towards films, coatings, electronics and packaging materials — the direction in which China's pulp and paper research establishment is actively repositioning itself.

Article types and peer review

The journal publishes original research articles and reviews, labelled on its platform as Original Article, Research Article and Review. Articles show the standard apparatus of international peer review: received and accepted dates are published with each paper — a 2021 hemicellulose review, for instance, records receipt on 9 February, acceptance on 30 March and publication on 25 July of that year — and papers carry structured abstracts, keywords and full reference lists. Author affiliations in its pages come from the sector's research core: Beijing Forestry University's biomass and materials colleges, the Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Science and Technology at Qilu University of Technology, the State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering at South China University of Technology, Tianjin University of Science and Technology's pulp and paper laboratory, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, and industry authors from paper manufacturers — the institutional map of Chinese pulp and paper science.

Publishing model and frequency

Paper and Biomaterials is published quarterly, four issues to a volume. Volume numbering on the platform is consistent and continuous: Volume 3 in 2018, Volume 5 in 2020, Volume 6 in 2021 and Volume 8 in 2023. It is a fully open-access journal — articles are free to read and download on SciOpen, with view and download counts displayed at article level. Its print ISSN is 2096-2355, which also forms part of its DOI registrations, as in 10.1213/j.issn.2096-2355.2021.03.006. Publication dates on the platform fall on a quarterly rhythm, with issues appearing across the year. The combination of a print ISSN, a specialist Beijing publisher and an international university-press platform gives the journal both a domestic industry identity and international digital reach.

Place in China's pulp and paper sector

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of paper and paperboard, and its research system for the sector — the China National Pulp and Paper Research Institute, the state key laboratories at South China University of Technology and elsewhere, and the forestry and light-industry universities — is correspondingly large. Most of that system's journal literature is in Chinese. Paper and Biomaterials is its English-language, open-access window, published by the sector's own magazines publisher. The journal's content shift mirrors the sector's strategy: traditional pulping and bleaching science remains, but the growth area is biomaterials — cellulose films, nanocellulose, lignin valorisation and hemicellulose applications — as the industry seeks higher-value products from the same biomass feedstocks.

Readership and use

The journal's readers are pulp and paper scientists, cellulose and lignin chemists, materials researchers working on bio-based films, coatings and composites, and engineers in the paper and packaging industries. Its open-access availability on SciOpen — with articles carrying Crossref and Scopus citation indicators at article level on the platform — makes it usable by researchers without subscription access, including the industry's own technical staff. For readers outside China, it offers direct access to Chinese work in a field where China is simultaneously the largest producer and an aggressive research investor, and where much primary literature is otherwise locked in Chinese-language journals such as the Transactions of China Pulp and Paper, which PBM articles themselves cite.

How it compares with related titles

Within this directory's China collection, Paper and Biomaterials sits in a small cluster of English-language journals serving traditional industries in transition — comparable in structure, though not in field, to titles published by Chinese industry research institutes through university-press platforms. Its distinguishing features are its single-sector depth, its quarterly regularity since at least 2017, and its fully open archive. Where general materials journals may carry occasional cellulose papers, PBM's entire remit is the fibre and biomass materials chain, from pulping chemistry to finished bio-based products, which gives its reviews — on hemicellulose utilisation and nanocellulose, for example — a specialist authority that broader titles rarely match.

Practical information

Paper and Biomaterials is published quarterly in Beijing by the China Pulp and Paper Magazines Publisher, with its editorial office associated with the China National Pulp and Paper Research Institute, and is hosted open access on Tsinghua University Press's SciOpen platform. Print ISSN: 2096-2355. Article DOIs are registered in the 10.12103, 10.1213 and 10.26599 families. The journal publishes research articles and reviews on pulp and paper science and bio-based materials, including cellulose and lignin chemistry, nanocellulose, coatings and biomass utilisation. Readers can browse the full archive, with received, accepted and published dates shown for each article, on the journal's SciOpen pages; the citation abbreviation is Pap Biomater or PBM.