Abstract
This study explores a bibliometric approach to quantitatively assessing current research trends on volatile organic compounds, by using the related literature in the Science Citation Index (SCI) database from 1992 to 2007. The articles acquired from such literature were concentrated on the general analysis by scientific output, the research performances by countries, institutes, and collaborations, and the research trends by the frequency of author keywords, words in title, words in abstract, and keywords plus. Over the past years, there had been a notable growth trend in publication outputs, along with more participation and collaboration of countries and institutes. Research collaborative papers had shifted from the national inter-institutional to the international collaboration. Benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde were the three kinds of VOCs concerned mostly. Detection and removing, especially by adsorption and oxidation, of VOCs were to be the orientation of all VOCs research in the next few years.
References
Bayer, A. E., & Folger, J. (1966). Some correlates of a citation measure of productivity in science. Sociology of Education, 39, 381–390.
Brasquet, C., & Le Cloirec, P. (1997). Adsorption onto activated carbon fibers: Application to water and air treatments. Carbon, 35, 1307–1313.
Braun, T., Glänzel, W., & Grupp, H. (1995). The scientometric weight of 50 nations in 27 science areas, 1989-1993. Part I. All fields combined, mathematics, engineering, chemistry and physics. Scientometrics, 33, 263–293.
Braun, T., Schubert, A. P., & Kostoff, R. N. (2000). Growth and trends of fullerene research as reflected in its journal literature. Chemical Reviews, 100, 23–38.
Brown, S. K., Sim, M. R., Abramson, M. J., & Gray, C. N. (1994). Concentrations of volatile organic compounds in indoor air—a review. Indoor Air, 4, 123–134.
Chiu, W. T., & Ho, Y. S. (2007). Bibliometric analysis of tsunami research. Scientometrics, 73, 3–17.
Cole, S. (1989). Citation and the evaluation of individual scientists. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 14, 9–13.
Colman, A. M., Dhillon, D., & Coulthard, B. (1995). A bibliometric evaluation of the research performance of British university politics departments: Publications in leading journals. Scientometrics, 32, 49–66.
Das, D., Graur, V., & Verma, N. (2004). Removal of volatile organic compound by activated carbon fiber. Carbon, 42, 2949–2962.
Di Carlo, P., Brune, W. H., Martinez, M., Harder, H., Lesher, R., Ren, X. R., et al. (2004). Missing OH reactivity in a forest: Evidence for unknown reactive biogenic VOCs. Science, 304, 722–725.
Garfield, E. (1970). Citation indexing for studying science. Nature, 227, 669–671.
Garfield, E. (1990). Keywords plus-ISIS breakthrough retrieval method. 1. Expanding your searching power on current-contents on diskette. Current Contents, 32, 5–9.
Garfield, E., & Sher, I. H. (1993). KeyWords PlusTM—algorithmic derivative indexing. The American Society for Information Science, 44, 298–299.
Guenther, A., Hewitt, C. N., Erickson, D., Fall, R., Geron, C., Graedel, T., et al. (1995). A global-model of natural volatile organic-compound emissions. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 100, 8873–8892.
Ho, Y. S. (2007). Bibliometric analysis of adsorption technology in environmental science. Journal of Environmental Protection Science, 1, 1–11.
Hsieh, W. H., Chiu, W. T., Lee, Y. S., & Ho, Y. S. (2004). Bibliometric analysis of patent ductus arteriosus treatments. Scientometrics, 60, 205–215.
Japan Environment Agency. (1998). Strategic programs on environmental endocrine disruptors’98. http://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/ed/speed98/sp98.html.
Jenkin, M. E., Saunders, S. M., & Pilling, M. J. (1997). The tropospheric degradation of volatile organic compounds: A protocol for mechanism development. Atmospheric Environment, 31, 81–104.
Keiser, J., & Utzinger, J. (2005). Trends in the core literature on tropical medicine: A bibliometric analysis from 1952-2002. Scientometrics, 62, 351–365.
Ku, Y., Ma, C. M., & Shen, Y. S. (2001). Decomposition of gaseous trichloroethylene in a photoreactor with TiO2-coated nonwoven fiber textile. Applied Catalysis B-Environmental, 34, 181–190.
Lewis, A. C., Carslaw, N., Marriott, P. J., Kinghorn, R. M., Morrison, P., Lee, A. L., et al. (2000). A larger pool of ozone-forming carbon compounds in urban atmospheres. Nature, 405, 778–781.
Li, L. L., Ding, G. H., Feng, N., Wang, M. H., & Ho, Y. S. (2008). Global stem cell research trend: Bibliometric analysis as a tool for mapping of trends from 1991 to 2006. Scientometrics, 80, 41–60.
Lund, S. T., & Bohlmann, J. (2006). The molecular basis for wine grape quality—a volatile subject. Science, 311, 804–805.
Machado, R. F., Laskowski, D., Deffenderfer, O., Burch, T., Zheng, S., Mazzone, P. J., et al. (2005). Detection of lung cancer by sensor array analyses of exhaled breath. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 171, 1286–1291.
MacKenzie, A. R., Harrison, R. M., Colbeck, I., & Hewitt, C. N. (1991). The role of biogenic hydrocarbons in the production of ozone in urban plumes in southeast England. Atmospheric Environment, 25, 351–359.
Navarro, F. A. (1996). The language of medicine, based on the bibliographical references from the original articles published in Midicina Clinica during 50 years (1945–1995). Medicina Clinica, 107, 608–613.
Norback, D., Bjornsson, E., Janson, C., Widstrom, J., & Boman, G. (1995). Asthmatic symptoms and volatile organic-compounds, formaldehyde, and carbon-dioxide in dwellings. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 52, 388–395.
Palmer, A. L., Sese, A., & Montano, J. J. (2005). Tourism and statistics—bibliometric study 1998–2002. Annals of Tourism Research, 32, 167–178.
Przyjazny, A., & Kokosa, J. M. (2002). Analytical characteristics of the determination of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes in water by headspace solvent microextraction. Journal of Chromatography A, 977, 143–153.
Scire, S., Minico, S., Crisafulli, C., Satriano, C., & Pistone, A. (2003). Catalytic combustion of volatile organic compounds on gold/cerium oxide catalysts. Applied Catalysis B-Environmental, 40, 43–49.
Self, P. C., Filardo, T. W., & Lancaster, F. W. (1989). Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome AIDS and the epidemic growth of its literature. Scientometrics, 17, 49–60.
Simonich, S. L., & Hites, R. A. (1994). Importance of vegetation in removing polycyclic aromatic-hydrocarbons from the atmosphere. Nature, 370, 49–51.
Ten, B. J., Selvin, S., Hodgson, A. T., Fisk, W. J., Mendell, M. J., Koshland, C. P., et al. (1988). Development of new volatile organic compound (VOC) exposure metrics and their relationship to “sick building syndrome” symptoms. Indoor Air, 8, 140–152.
Ugolini, D., Parodi, S., & Santi, L. (1997). Analysis of publication quality in a cancer research institute. Scientometrics, 38, 265–274.
Van der Bruggen, B., & Vandecasteele, C. (2003). Removal of pollutants from surface water and groundwater by nanofiltration: Overview of possible applications in the drinking water industry. Environmental Pollution, 122, 435–445.
Wallace, L. (1996). Environmental exposure to benzene: An update. Environmental Health Perspectives, 104, 1129–1136.
Wallace, L. A., Pellizzari, E. D., Hartwell, T. D., Davids, V., Michael, L. C., & Whitmore, R. W. (1989). The influence of personal activities on exposure to volatile organic-compounds. Environmental Research, 50, 37–55.
Wolkoff, P., & Nielsen, G. D. (2001). Organic compounds in indoor air—their relevance for perceived indoor air quality. Atmospheric Environment, 35, 4407–4417.
Zhou, F., Guo, H. C., Ho, Y. S., & Wu, C. Z. (2007). Scientometric analysis of geostatistics using multivariate methods. Scientometrics, 73, 265–279.
Zitt, M., & Bassecoulard, E. (1994). Development of a method for detection and trend analysis of research fronts built by lexical or cocitation analysis. Scientometrics, 30, 333–351.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, G., Xie, S. & Ho, YS. A bibliometric analysis of world volatile organic compounds research trends. Scientometrics 83, 477–492 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0065-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0065-3