The evaluation of the research on the biohydrogen: a scientometric approach

Abstract

The present study explores the characteristics of the literature on the biohydrogen published during the last three decades, based on the databases of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and its implications using the scientometric techniques. The results of this study reveal that the literature on the biohydrogen has grown exponentially during this period with 1,218 papers in total with paralleling enormous changes in the research landscape. Papers mostly have been journal articles, reviews, and proceedings papers, published predominantly in English. China, the US, and Taiwan have been the three most prolific countries. The "National Cheng Kung University" of Taiwan has been the most prolific institution. "Ren NQ" of China and "Chang JS" of Taiwan have been the most prolific authors. "International Journal of Hydrogen Energy" has been the most prolific journal publishing 42.7% of the research output on the biohydrogen whilst, "Energy & Fuels" has been the most prolific subject area covering 60.7% of the research output. The total number of citations has been 20,972, with 17.22 citations per paper and with "H-index" of 66. Huber et al. [1] has had the highest impact on the literature with 637 citations and 106.2 citations per year. Both the research output and the citations have increased spectacularly after 2005, making a respective peak in 2010. The results of this first ever scientometric study of its kind for the biohydrogen research show that the scientometric analysis has a great potential to gain valuable insights into the evolution of the high-profile research on the biohydrogen, complementing other research techniques such as literature reviews, meta-analyses, and content analyses as well as the emerging research on other types of renewable energies.