Elsevier’s International Journal of Hydrogen Energy published "Origin of the distinct site occupations of H atom in hcp Ti and Zr/Hf" in November 2024. Paragraph seven of the introduction consists of a single sentence: "As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [35-47] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work." One of the authors told us they included the references as a "joke" after reviewers pressured them.

All 13 of the references include Sergei Trukhanov as an author, and all but one also includes Alex Trukhanov. According to his most recent paper, Alex Trukhanov is affiliated with the Scientific-Practical Materials Research Centre of NAS of belarus in minsk. Sergei Trukhanov is listed as a researcher at the National University of Science and Technology in moscow on his most recent paper. Neither responded to our request for comment.

According to the retraction notice, "the authors were requested by two of the reviewers to insert redundant references. The peer review process is deemed to have been compromised." The notice also states the reviewers responsible for the citation prompting have been removed from the "journal database, so that they cannot review papers in the future."

 
Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/04/09/irrelevant-citations-journal-hydrogen-energy-elsevier-retraction/

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