The EBB and flow of US coal research 1970-2010 with a focus on academic institutions

The leading academic institutions publication records were evaluated using Wordle to visually determine research focus areas through word frequency analysis of the journal article titles. The Wordle analysis and scanning of article titles determined areas of specialty for the various universities and other institutions. Active authors (for the period of analyses) were also determined using this approach. Among the US academic entities, the leading institutions (by quantity of journal articles) were The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), Kentucky, West Virginia, Southern Illinois at Carbondale, University of Illinois, MIT, Utah, Brigham Young, Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Wyoming, Auburn, Carnegie Mellon, North Dakota, Iowa, California at Berkeley, Tennessee, Texas, Purdue, Texas A&M, Missouri, Georgia, and Western Kentucky. Of these, about half are still “active” in “coal science” as defined as 15 coal science publications (by this search approach) between 2000 and 2010, where the focus is science and engineering research on coal, but does not include coal-related areas such a post-combustion pollution control or the various catalytic interaction of coal-derived synthesis gas.