| name | aiche-journal |
| description | Use when targeting AIChE Journal or deciding whether a chemical-engineering manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the fundamental-and-generalizable contribution bar, modeling-plus-experiment rigor, house style, the fundamentals-vs-applied routing, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. |
AIChE Journal (aiche-journal)
Journal positioning
AIChE Journal is the flagship archival journal of the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers, publishing fundamental, generalizable chemical-engineering science:
transport phenomena, thermodynamics, reaction engineering and kinetics, separations,
interfacial and colloidal phenomena, and process systems engineering. Its center of
gravity is the principle, not the product — a paper earns space when it advances the
understanding of a chemical-engineering phenomenon in a way that transfers beyond the
specific system studied. Application case studies that optimize one process, or
materials papers where the chemical-engineering science is incidental, are a weak fit
and read better at a more applied venue. This skill is a fit / venue-selection /
re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official author
guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live AIChE Journal author guidelines on
the Wiley site.
When to trigger
- The author names AIChE Journal for a transport, thermodynamics, reaction-engineering,
separations, or process-systems manuscript and wants a fit/framing check.
- A paper must be re-framed from "we built/optimized this process" into a generalizable
chemical-engineering principle with predictive reach.
- The author is choosing between AIChE Journal's fundamentals bar and the more applied
chemical-engineering-journal.
- The author needs AIChE Journal's modeling-and-experiment rigor bar and desk-reject
heuristics.
Scope & topic fit
- Transport phenomena: momentum/heat/mass transfer, multiphase flow, mixing, and
interfacial transport with new theory, correlation, or mechanism.
- Thermodynamics and molecular engineering: equations of state, phase equilibria,
electrolyte and complex-fluid thermodynamics, and predictive property modeling.
- Reaction engineering and kinetics: reactor design and analysis, catalytic kinetics,
multiscale reaction–transport coupling, and intensified reactors.
- Separations: distillation, absorption, extraction, adsorption, and membrane
separations where the advance is in mechanism, modeling, or generalizable design.
- Interfacial, colloidal, and particle science; population-balance and complex-fluid
behavior tied to chemical-engineering phenomena.
- Process systems engineering: modeling, optimization, control, and design at the
systems level when the methodological contribution generalizes.
Method & evidence bar
- The central claim is a fundamental, transferable result — a model, mechanism, or
scaling — validated against experiment or rigorous simulation, not a tuned outcome
for a single feedstock or unit.
- Models must be physically grounded, with stated assumptions, dimensional consistency,
and validation against independent data; a fitted correlation with no mechanistic
basis is usually insufficient.
- Experimental work must report conditions, uncertainties, and reproducibility in
enough detail to reproduce the measurement and the regime of validity.
- Generality is demonstrated, not asserted: show that the result holds across a
parameter range, dimensionless regime, or system class — not at one operating point.
- Compare to the correct prior models/correlations and state precisely what is new
(wider regime, fewer assumptions, better predictive accuracy).
Structure & house style
- Standard research-article structure (introduction, theory/methods, results,
discussion); AIChE Journal publishes full archival articles and shorter formats —
re-check current article types on the live guide.
- The introduction frames the chemical-engineering-science gap and the phenomenon
being explained, not the application target; the discussion makes the
generality/validity argument explicit.
- Equations and dimensionless groups are load-bearing; define all symbols, give a
nomenclature section per house style, and keep notation consistent.
- Figures pair model predictions with experimental/simulation data and show error
bars and regimes of validity; supporting information carries extended derivations
and full datasets.
Official-submission checklist
- Before giving submission-ready advice, read
../../resources/source-basis.md and
../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the Wiley anchors, then cite the
current AIChE Journal author-guidelines page you checked.
- Search the live site for "AIChE Journal author guidelines" and follow the current
Wiley/submission-system version.
- Re-check article types, length/figure expectations, and the nomenclature/SI-units
formatting conventions.
- Confirm data-availability, supporting-information, and any code/model-sharing
expectations.
- Re-check ORCID, competing-interests, funding, author-contribution (CRediT), and
AI-use disclosure requirements.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official
instructions win.
Pre-submission self-check
Common desk-reject triggers
- Single-process optimization or case study with no transferable chemical-engineering principle.
- Empirical correlation fitted to one dataset with no mechanistic basis or validation regime.
- Materials-synthesis paper where the chemical-engineering science is incidental to the material.
- Simulation-only study with no experimental anchor or testable prediction.
- Application-domain framing (a specific product/plant) where the science does not generalize.
- Scope mismatch: a pure chemistry, pure materials, or pure controls paper using CE only as a label.
Re-routing decision
- Applied/materials-heavy chemical engineering with environmental/energy emphasis →
chemical-engineering-journal.
- Membrane materials and transport as the core →
journal-of-membrane-science.
- Systems-level energy conversion / techno-economic scope →
applied-energy.
- Combustion or energy review synthesis →
progress-in-energy-and-combustion-science.
- Catalysis as a chemistry/mechanism advance over CE design →
nature-catalysis.
Output format
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] AIChE Journal
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest CE subtopics>
[Fundamental claim] <the generalizable transport/thermo/reaction/separation principle in one line>
[Method/evidence] <does model + experiment clear the fundamentals + validation bar?>
[Generality] <range/regime over which the result is shown to hold>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / nomenclature / data policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
