ACS Applied Nano Materials Open Access Journal: 2025 Guide

ACS Applied Nano Materials is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Chemical Society (ACS). It is a hybrid journal: some articles are published open access, and others sit behind a subscription paywall. There is no separate “open access edition” of the journal. If you want to read or publish open access content in this title, you choose that option article by article, and ACS sets the rules rather than the journal’s editors.

What the journal is

ACS Applied Nano Materials covers fundamental science and applied research on nanomaterials. It launched in 2018 and publishes weekly. The editor-in-chief is Xing Yi Ling of Nanyang Technological University, according to the journal’s Wikipedia entry.

The journal is indexed in Chemical Abstracts Core, Current Contents (Engineering, Computing and Technology; Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences), Ei Compendex, Science Citation Index Expanded, and Scopus. Its 2024 Journal Citation Reports impact factor is 5.5. Those indexing entries matter if you are deciding where to submit: a journal that appears in Science Citation Index Expanded and Scopus is visible to most institutional search tools and citation databases.

Scope-wise, the title sits in the applied side of nanoscience. Typical subject matter includes nanoparticle synthesis, nanocomposites, nanoscale coatings, sensing materials, and energy-related nanomaterials. If your work is closer to pure nanoscience theory than to an application, a different ACS title may fit better.

How open access works here

ACS runs open access through its publishing agreements and author-pays options rather than by converting individual journals wholesale. For ACS Applied Nano Materials, that means two routes to a free-to-read article:

• Gold open access. You pay an article publishing charge (APC), and the final published version is free for anyone to read immediately. The licence is usually CC BY.
• Green open access. You deposit an accepted manuscript in a repository, subject to ACS’s embargo and version rules. The published version of record stays paywalled.

A third route exists through read-and-publish agreements. Many universities and research funders have deals with ACS that cover the APC for affiliated authors, so the article can be published open access at no direct cost to you. Whether your institution has such an agreement is the single most useful thing to check before you submit, because it can change your cost from a few thousand dollars to zero.

Checking before you submit

1. Look up your institution in ACS’s list of participating institutions, or ask your library’s scholarly communications team.
2. Check your funder’s policy. Some funders require open access and will pay an APC; others require only deposit in a repository.
3. Confirm the licence you need. CC BY is the most permissive and is what most funders ask for.
4. If no agreement covers you, decide whether green open access satisfies your requirement before committing to the fee.

APC amounts change, and ACS offers discounts and waivers for authors in some countries and for some article types. Get the current figure from ACS directly rather than from a third-party summary, since these numbers are revised periodically.

Finding open access articles in the journal

You do not need a subscription to find out what has been published. Several free tools will tell you whether a given article is open access, and where to read it.

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) indexes fully open access journals rather than hybrid ones, so it is more useful for checking a journal’s overall status than for locating a single article in a hybrid title. For article-level checks, the publisher’s own site is the most reliable source: ACS Publications labels open access articles clearly and links the licence. Unpaywall-style browser tools and Google Scholar also flag free versions, including repository copies.

A worked example makes the distinction concrete. Suppose a paper on a nanomaterial sensor appears in the journal. If the authors paid an APC, the version on the ACS site is free to read and carries a CC BY notice. If they did not, the ACS version is paywalled, but the accepted manuscript may be free in the authors’ institutional repository after the embargo. Same article, two different access situations. That is normal for a hybrid journal, and it is why “is this journal open access?” is the wrong question. The right question is “is this article open access?”

Publishing considerations

If open access is a requirement for you, plan for it before submission rather than after acceptance. The decision is usually made during the submission process, and switching later can be awkward or impossible depending on the publisher’s workflow.

A few practical points:

• Budget and timing. APCs are typically paid at acceptance, not at submission. Confirm who is paying (grant, institution, or you) before you commit.
• Funder mandates. If your funder requires immediate open access, green deposit alone may not satisfy it. Read the specific policy wording.
• Licence choice. CC BY allows reuse including commercial reuse with attribution. Some authors prefer a more restrictive licence; check whether your funder permits that.
• Peer review is unaffected. Choosing open access does not change how your manuscript is reviewed or whether it is accepted.
• Preprints. Posting a preprint before submission is generally allowed by ACS, but check the current policy, since preprint rules have shifted across publishers in recent years.

For anything involving a grant, an institutional open access policy, or a funder mandate, confirm the details with your research office or scholarly communications librarian. They deal with these agreements routinely and can tell you what your specific situation requires. The American Chemical Society publishes the authoritative policy documents for its own journals.

One last point on expectations. A hybrid journal is not a lesser open access venue, and it is not a fully open one either. It gives authors a choice. If your goal is to publish in ACS Applied Nano Materials and have your article free for everyone to read, the path is straightforward: check for an institutional agreement, budget for the APC if there is none, and select open access during submission.

Key Takeaways

• ACS Applied Nano Materials is a hybrid journal from the American Chemical Society: some articles are open access, others are paywalled.
• It launched in 2018, publishes weekly, and had a 2024 impact factor of 5.5.
• Open access is chosen per article, either gold (author pays, immediate free access) or green (repository deposit, embargo applies).
• Institutional read-and-publish agreements with ACS can cover the APC entirely, so check your library before submitting.
• Confirm current APC amounts, licence options, and funder requirements with ACS or your research office, since these change over time.
• To check whether a specific article is free to read, use the ACS Publications site rather than assuming based on the journal’s name.