World literature on thorium research: A scientometric study based on Science Citation Index

Summary

This paper attempts to highlight quantitatively the growth and development of world literature on thorium in terms of publication output as per Science Citation Index (1982-2004). During 1982-2004 a total of 3987 papers were published by the scientists in the field 'thorium'. The average number of publications published per year were 173. The highest number of papers 249 were published in 2001. The spurt in the literature output was reported during 1991-2004.There were 94 countries involved in the research in this field. USA is the top producing country with 1000 authorships (21.11%) followed by India with 498 authorships (10.51%). Authorship and collaboration trend was towards multi-authored papers. Intensive collaboration was found during 1990-2004.One paper 'Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research - A 406 (3) (1998) 411-426' had 64 collaborators. There were 586 international collaborative papers. Bilateral collaboration accounted for 80.55 percent of total collaborative papers. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (India) topped the list with 153 authorships followed by Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) with 105 authorships.The most preferred journals by the scientists were: Journal of Radioanalytical Nuclear Chemistry with 181 papers, Radiochimica Acta with 139 papers, Journal of Radioanalytical Nuclear Chemistry -Articles with 127 papers, Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta with 96 papers, Health Physics with 91 papers, Applied Radiation and Isotopes with 88 papers, Journal of Alloys and Compounds with 65 papers, Earth and Planetary Science letters with 59 papers and Chemical Geology, Indian Journal of Chemistry -A, Radiation Protection Dosimetry with 55 papers each. English was the most predominant language used by the scientists for communication. The high frequency keywords were: Thorium (500), Uranium (284), Separation (94), Thorium Isotopes (90), Thorium (IV) (86), Seawater (73), Solvent Extraction (70), and Rare Earth Elements (68).