Manuscript Preparation

Figures, charts, tables, schemes, and equations should be embedded in the text at the point of relevance. Separate graphics with high quality (as TIF, PNG, JPEG) can be supplied later at the revision stage. 

The manuscript template can be downloaded from Research template and Review template

All submissions need to be made via our online submission system via this link

Title page

Please make sure your title page contains the following information:

Title

The title should be concise and informative.

Author information

1- The name(s) of the author(s)

2- The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country

3- A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author

4- If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

If the address information is provided with the affiliation(s), it will also be published.

For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated, we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address, unless specifically requested.

Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Funding (information that explains whether and by whom the research was supported)

Conflicts of interest/Competing interests (include appropriate disclosures): attach the corresponding form when submitting the paper.

Availability of data and material (data transparency)

Code availability (software application or custom code)

Abstract and Graphical Abstract (ToC)

The abstract should be maximum of 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. All Research Articles, Letters, Perspectives, and Reviews must be accompanied by an abstract, including an Abstract (TOC) graphic, which should state briefly the purpose of the research (if this is not contained in the title), the principal results, and major conclusions. Abstracts of manuscripts may not contain the words “superb”, “excellent”, “exceptional”, “outstanding”, or other similar descriptive words unless rigorously supported by a thorough comparison with the state-of-the-art in the manuscript. Like manuscript titles, the words “New”, “First”, or “Novel” are also generally disallowed in the abstract.

The abstract graphic should be an eye-catching scheme to capture the reader’s attention and, in conjunction with the manuscript title, should give the reader a quick visual impression of the essence of the manuscript without providing specific results.  Avoid choosing a graphic that already appears within the text of the manuscript.  The graphic should be no wider than 3.25 inches by 1.75 inches (approx. 8.25 cm by 4.45 cm).  All information should be readable at that size.

Artwork and Illustration Guidelines

The impact of your research is not limited to what you can express with words. Tables and figures such as graphs, photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and other visuals can play a significant role in effectively communicating your findings. To achieve this goal, it is mandatory where possible to illustrate schemes that show the authors’ insight. Please follow the below guideline:

Figures:

• • Color art is free of charge for online publication.
  • A schematic illustration is needed for the reaction/preparation of the system (e.g., synthesis of nanoparticles, drug encapsulation, methodology, and in vivo application) to help the readers to understand the process.
  • In the Figures, diagrams, and schemes, please do not use “Time new Roman” font. Please use more readable fonts such as Helvetica. Also, the fonts should be big enough to should be readable. 
  • Supply Figures with at least 300 to 600 dpi resolution and A4 or letter size (e.g., dimension about 21.0 cm by 29.7 cm).
  • Multicompartment figures including scheme+ Figure data (e.g., graphs, diagrams, and qualitative data) are encouraged, especially for review and perspective articles.
  • For review and perspective articles, in Figure captions or below tables, please define the abbreviation and full name of the terms used in those tables or Figures.

 The tutorial for Figure permission can be viewed here

Tables

• • All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Tables should supplement, not duplicate the information presented in the text and figures.

Abbreviations

• • Provide a list of abbreviations and acronyms used in the paper (for review papers).
  • For review and perspective articles, preferably, please reduce the number of abbreviations in the text to enhance the continuity of the text. Preferably, one-word terms should not be abbreviated. Just for those terms (e.g., containing 2 or 3 words) that are repeated many times throughout the whole text. Ensure that any symbols and abbreviations used in the text agree with those in the artwork.

Unit style

Please use the International System of Units (SI), commonly known as the metric system. 

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of people, grants, funds, etc., should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Citation and References 

It is suggested to use reference managers to handle the references. Citation and Reference style:

Biomaterials are used for drug delivery [1, 2].

[1] R. Jamaledin, C.K.Y. Yiu, E.N. Zare, L.N. Niu, R. Vecchione, G. Chen, Z. Gu, F.R. Tay, P. Makvandi, Advances in Antimicrobial Microneedle Patches for Combating Infections, Adv. Mater. 32 (2020) 2002129. 

Book chapters:

[2] E.N. Zare, P. Makvandi, Antimicrobial Metal-Based Nanomaterials and Their Industrial and Biomedical Applications, in: S. Snigdha, S. Thomas, E. Radhakrishnan, N. Kalarikkal (Eds.), Engineered Antimicrobial Surface, Springer, 2020: pp. 123–134.

Please always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see

Web of Science- Journal Title Abbreviations

If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.

Author Biographies:  
For review and perspective articles, please provide high-resolution photos and short biographies​​ (no more than 100 words per person) for those authors who should be highlighted in the author biography section at the end of the article.

Changes to Authorship:

Any changes to the authorship of accepted manuscripts, including additions, deletions, or rearrangements of authors' names, must be communicated to the journal's executive manager by the corresponding author. The corresponding author should provide the following information:

(a) The reasons justifying the addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors' names.
(b) Written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors indicating their agreement with the proposed changes.

If authors need to add or remove authors, the corresponding author should submit the confirmation from the authors involved. Requests sent by authors other than the corresponding author will be forwarded to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure described above.

Please note that (1) the executive manager will inform the editors about such requests, and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue will be put on hold until authorship has been agreed upon.

Once the accepted manuscript is published online, any requests to add, delete, or rearrange authors' names in the article will follow the same policies mentioned above and will result in a corrigendum.

Conflicts of Interest Disclosure

Authors submitting to Materials Chemistry Horizons are required to complete and submit a conflicts of interest disclosure form during the manuscript submission process. This form will ask authors to disclose any financial interests related to the submitted work or any other potential sources of conflicting interests that may have directly or indirectly influenced their research. If no conflicts of interest exist, authors should state: "The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding this article."

Charges and fees

There is no charge for submitting a paper to MCH, and no page charges for publication. All articles published in Materials Chemistry Horizons are published in full open access. The publication costs are covered by Materials Chemistry Horizons, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge (APC) for each article accepted for publication. 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All articles published open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute. Permitted reuse is defined by the following user licenses:

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): The CC BY license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.  

Copyright Transfer Agreement

Upon acceptance of an article, the corresponding author will be asked to transfer the signed copyright form to the publisher on behalf of  all co-authors. The authors must be warranted that are aware of and agree with all contents of the article and consent to their name appearing on it.

Cover letter:

Please write and attach a cover letter including the following items:

1- Please confirm that you have acknowledged all organizations that funded your research, and provided grant numbers where appropriate. If there is no funder, then confirm it.

2- Select one of the following data depositions:
(a) My manuscript has associated data in a data repository
(b) My manuscript has no associated data or the data will not be deposited
(c) My manuscript has data included as electronic supplementary material

3- Specify appropriate editor from our Editorial Board