Author Guidelines

Language

Manuscripts must be written in clear, professional, and academically appropriate English. Authors are responsible for grammar, spelling, scientific terminology, consistency, and readability.

Manuscripts whose language substantially interferes with scientific interpretation may be returned for language improvement before editorial evaluation or external peer review.

Types of Articles

Manuscript Structure

Original research manuscripts should generally follow the structure below. Authors may adapt the organization where justified by the nature of the research.

Title

The title should accurately identify the material, degradation mechanism, coating system, corrosion environment, method, or principal scientific contribution of the study.

Avoid unnecessarily long titles, unexplained abbreviations, promotional expressions, and generic wording that does not communicate the actual research contribution.

Abstract

The abstract should be concise and self-contained. For original research, it should normally communicate:

• The corrosion or materials problem;
• The research objective;
• The principal experimental or computational method;
• The most important quantitative findings;
• The major mechanistic or engineering interpretation; and
• The principal scientific contribution.

Authors should report meaningful quantitative findings when available rather than relying only on statements such as “excellent corrosion resistance was obtained.”

References should normally not be cited in the abstract.

Keywords

Authors should provide approximately 4–6 keywords representing the material, degradation mechanism, coating technology, testing method, environmental condition, or engineering application investigated.

Keywords should support indexing and international discoverability and should not simply duplicate the complete article title.

Introduction

The Introduction should establish the scientific and engineering context of the study and demonstrate why the investigation is necessary.

Authors should clearly address:

• The corrosion, degradation, or coating problem;
• The scientific or engineering significance;
• The current state of knowledge;
• Limitations of previous approaches;
• The unresolved research gap;
• The novelty of the proposed work;
• The research objective or hypothesis; and
• The expected contribution.

Previous studies should be critically synthesized rather than presented as a simple chronological list.

Materials and Methods

Methods must be reported with sufficient detail to permit scientific assessment and, where reasonably possible, replication or reproduction of the research.

Materials

Authors should identify materials, alloy designation, relevant composition, substrate type, dimensions, heat treatment, manufacturing condition, or other material properties necessary for interpretation of the study.

Specimen Preparation

Surface grinding, polishing, cleaning, degreasing, blasting, pickling, etching, or other preparation procedures should be described clearly.

Exposure Environment

Authors should report relevant conditions, including electrolyte composition, concentration, pH, temperature, dissolved gases, pressure, flow condition, humidity, exposure duration, and other variables affecting corrosion behaviour.

Replication and Statistics

Experimental studies should provide sufficient replication where applicable and report appropriate measures of variability or uncertainty.

Coating and Surface Engineering Studies

Studies involving coatings or surface modification should provide sufficient information for readers to understand the complete relationship between processing, structure, properties, and protection performance.

Substrate Preparation

Authors should report substrate material, initial surface condition, surface roughness where relevant, cleaning, blasting, polishing, chemical treatment, or pretreatment procedures.

Coating Composition

Relevant constituents, precursors, additives, pigments, binders, particles, inhibitors, solvents, or reinforcement materials should be identified.

Deposition and Processing

Relevant process parameters should be reported for techniques such as:

Coating Thickness and Curing

Coating thickness, number of layers, drying or curing conditions, temperature, duration, and other relevant processing conditions should be reported.

Coating Performance

Claims of improved corrosion resistance should be supported by suitable comparison, characterization, and performance testing.

Routine formulation studies without mechanistic interpretation or adequate structure–property–performance analysis may not provide sufficient scientific contribution.

Electrochemical and Corrosion Testing

Electrochemical Cell

Authors should identify the working electrode, reference electrode, counter electrode, exposed area, electrolyte, temperature, and test-cell configuration.

Open-Circuit Potential

Where applicable, the stabilization procedure and duration before electrochemical testing should be described.

Potentiodynamic Polarization

Authors should report relevant parameters including potential range, scan rate, reference electrode, exposed area, and method used to determine corrosion potential and corrosion current density.

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)

EIS studies should report, where applicable:

• Frequency range;
• AC perturbation amplitude;
• DC bias condition;
• Electrode area;
• Solution condition;
• Equivalent circuit or fitting model;
• Meaning of fitted parameters; and
• Quality or appropriateness of model fitting.

Weight-Loss and Immersion Tests

Specimen dimensions, exposed area, exposure duration, solution volume, cleaning procedure, mass measurement, and corrosion-rate calculation should be clearly stated.

Accelerated Corrosion Testing

Salt-spray, cyclic corrosion, humidity, immersion, or other accelerated tests should identify the relevant test conditions and standard method where applicable.

Materials and Surface Characterization

Characterization should be selected according to the scientific question and should contribute meaningfully to interpretation of mechanisms and material performance.

Image Integrity

Scientific images must represent the actual specimens or data analyzed. Adjustments must not add, remove, move, obscure, or selectively enhance scientifically relevant features.

Mechanical and Coating Performance

Where relevant, authors should describe procedures and test conditions for:

Test standards should be identified where relevant, and experimental parameters should be reported sufficiently for interpretation and comparison.

Numerical, Computational and Data-Driven Studies

Studies involving corrosion modelling, finite-element analysis, multiphysics modelling, molecular simulation, optimization, artificial intelligence, or machine learning should clearly report:

• Research assumptions;
• Governing model or computational framework;
• Material properties;
• Initial and boundary conditions;
• Model parameters;
• Numerical or computational settings;
• Datasets and data preprocessing;
• Training, validation, and testing procedures where relevant;
• Verification and validation;
• Performance metrics;
• Sensitivity or uncertainty analysis where appropriate; and
• Limitations.

Results

Results should be presented clearly, logically, and objectively. Authors should avoid unnecessary duplication between text, tables, and figures.

Relevant quantitative information, uncertainty, variation, or statistical indicators should be reported when applicable.

Corrosion-resistance or coating-performance claims must be supported by actual experimental or computational evidence.

Discussion

The Discussion should explain why the observed behaviour occurred rather than simply repeating numerical results.

Authors should consider:

• Corrosion or degradation mechanisms;
• Role of microstructure and surface chemistry;
• Influence of coating morphology and defects;
• Electrochemical interpretation;
• Comparison with previous studies;
• Structure–property–performance relationships;
• Engineering implications;
• Limitations and uncertainty;
• Potential scale-up or field application; and
• Future research requirements.

Conclusions

Conclusions should directly address the research objectives and emphasize the principal scientific or engineering findings.

Avoid introducing new data or unsupported claims. Conclusions should not simply repeat the abstract or Results section.

Figures, Tables and Scientific Illustrations

Figures

Graphs, micrographs, photographs, electrochemical curves, spectra, phase diagrams, simulation outputs, and other figures must be clear, readable, and appropriately labelled.

Tables

Tables should present information efficiently and should not unnecessarily duplicate the content of figures or text.

Captions

Every figure and table must be numbered, cited in the manuscript, and accompanied by an informative caption.

Copyrighted Material

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted photographs, figures, diagrams, datasets, or other materials when required.

Equations, Symbols and Units

The International System of Units (SI units) should normally be used. Variables, symbols, subscripts, superscripts, and abbreviations should be used consistently.

Equations that are referred to in the text should be numbered consecutively. All variables should be defined at first use.

References

References must be accurate, complete, relevant, and sufficient to establish the scientific context of the research.

Authors are encouraged to cite relevant peer-reviewed primary literature and recent international research where appropriate.

Excessive self-citation, irrelevant citation, citation padding, coercive citation, and coordinated citation practices are not acceptable.

References should follow the citation and reference style specified in the current Journal of Corrosion and Coatings manuscript template.

Research Data and Reproducibility

Authors should retain original research records and supporting data necessary to substantiate the findings reported in the manuscript.

Where legally, ethically, commercially, and technically appropriate, authors are encouraged to make supporting research data available through recognized repositories or supplementary files.

Editors may request supporting data when necessary to assess validity, reproducibility, image integrity, or research-integrity concerns.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual or scholarly contributions to the research.

All authors must approve the submitted manuscript and accept responsibility for their contributions.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, purchased authorship, and ghost authorship are not acceptable.

Contributor Roles

Declarations

Where applicable, manuscripts should include appropriate declarations covering:

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

AI Cannot Be an Author

Generative AI systems, large language models, chatbots, and related technologies cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Human Responsibility

Human authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, scientific integrity, references, equations, calculations, material properties, corrosion parameters, interpretations, and conclusions of all submitted content.

Disclosure

Substantive use of generative AI for manuscript preparation, coding, analysis, visualization, or image generation should be transparently disclosed where applicable.

Verification

Authors must independently verify AI-assisted outputs. Fabricated or inaccurate references, standards, corrosion parameters, material properties, equations, or scientific claims are unacceptable.

Research and Publication Ethics

Authors must comply with the journal's Publication Ethics and Journal Policies.

The journal does not tolerate:

• Plagiarism;
• Fabrication or falsification;
• Manipulation of corrosion or electrochemical data;
• Scientific image manipulation;
• Duplicate or redundant publication;
• Inappropriate authorship;
• Citation manipulation;
• Peer-review manipulation;
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest; or
• Other forms of research misconduct.

Peer Review

Every submission is first assessed by the editorial team to determine whether it meets the aims and scope and satisfies minimum scholarly standards.

Manuscripts considered suitable for further evaluation are normally sent to qualified subject experts for external peer review.

Reviewer recommendations inform editorial decisions, while final responsibility remains with the authorized editor.

Revision of Manuscripts

When revision is requested, authors should submit:

• A revised manuscript;
• A detailed point-by-point response to reviewers;
• A clear explanation of important changes;
• Scientific justification where a reviewer recommendation has not been adopted;
• Any additional files or data requested by the editorial office.

Responses should be professional, specific, and evidence-based.

Authors should avoid responding only with “done,” “corrected,” or “revised” without identifying the actual modification.

Submission Checklist