The scientometric evaluation on the research of biodiesel based on HistCite and VOSviewer (1993–2019)

Abstract

Biodiesel is potentially an alternative, sustainable fuel which has high demand in future. The research and development in biodiesel production are continuously increasing and has a great choice of interest. In this area, there is a scope to analyze the bulk of the research output available which could be categorized to decide the next steps and identify research gaps. Therefore, the scientometric approach was carried out in this study, by HistCite and VOSviewer to identify the trends and problems associated with this research area. Based on a Web of Science database search, 19,491 documents were retrieved for biodiesel production from the Web of Science Core Collection and they were systematically screened out from 1993 to 2019. The documents were reviewed for co-authorship, collaboration with nations, co-occurrence of keywords, and institutional collaboration. The data showed that the studies released had an upward trend over the years. China plays an important role in the research area of biodiesel development among the developing countries by taking into account the number of citations, and the USA is the top country with the ability to alter the network’s structure. Developed countries have also played a significant role in promoting research in this field, along with developing countries. Study patterns have shown that early-year research trends appear to be pure environmental studies and have moved to areas such as monitoring, management, and protection of biodiversity in recent years. In this study, an extensive analysis of the status of research and developments in biodiesel production is provided along with feedback on possible research directions.