Coatings Submission Guide: MDPI Process (2026)

Coatings is not a weaker version of Surface and Coatings Technology, and it is not a faster Applied Surface Science. It is a different model. MDPI built it around speed and soundness-based review: the editorial question is whether the coating work is methodologically sound and within scope, not whether it ranks among the most cited surface-engineering findings of the year. That model shapes how you should prepare the package.

Two consequences matter most. First, the journal is section-based and organized by surface-engineering subfield, so scope fit is assessed against a specific section (Tribology, Corrosion Wear and Erosion, Thin Films, Ceramic Coatings, Functional Polymer Coatings, Bioactive Coatings and Biointerfaces, and others) rather than a vague "is this interesting" bar. Second, the pre-check is fast and partly template-driven, so completeness is rewarded and incompleteness is punished early.

A clean deposition study with a missing data-availability statement can be returned before a reviewer sees it, while a competent, complete, in-section study moves quickly.

The thing authors most often get wrong: Coatings rewards demonstrated performance over fabrication novelty. A paper that synthesizes a new coating and characterizes it with SEM, XRD, and EDS but never measures adhesion, wear, or corrosion resistance is a soundness gap, not a scope win. The journal publishes coatings; an untested coating is an incomplete coatings paper.

The core fit for most submissions is the original research article. It works best when the coating system is the actual subject, the deposition is reproducible from the text, and the characterization and performance package is complete on first upload.

Ask these questions before you submit:

• is the coating or surface treatment the actual subject, or is it a downstream step in a bulk-materials or synthesis study?
• can a reader reproduce the coating from the deposition parameters in the manuscript and supplementary files alone?
• does every performance claim (harder, tougher, more corrosion-resistant) have a measurement and a named test standard behind it?
• does the abstract name the section subfield, so a section editor can route the paper in one read?

If the answers are uncertain, the package problem is usually more important than the novelty problem.

The pre-check editor is answering a short list of questions fast.

On scope, the editor asks whether the manuscript belongs in a coatings journal and in which section. If the surface relevance is thin, or the paper is really about a powder, a bulk alloy, or a synthesis route that happens to mention a film, it is redirected or returned. On soundness, the question is whether the deposition is reproducible and the characterization adequate.

Coatings does not require the coating to be field-defining, but it does require the work to be done correctly, characterized properly, and tested for the property it claims to improve.

On integrity, the editor checks ethics statements where biomedical coatings or human or animal materials are involved, image-integrity expectations for SEM and cross-section micrographs, and a data availability statement. MDPI runs integrity and plagiarism checks at pre-check, and gaps here trigger fast returns. On completeness, the editor looks for the declarations block. A manuscript missing Author Contributions, Funding, Data Availability, or Conflicts of Interest reads as not ready, even when the surface science is fine.

Manuscript structure: Coatings expects a defined section set: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion (or combined Results and Discussion), Conclusions, plus the declarations block. The abstract runs to around 200 words as a single structured paragraph, and it is the first thing the pre-check editor reads, so the coating system, the deposition method, and the headline property result all need to be visible there.

Deposition and characterization readiness: Provide full deposition detail (method, substrate, temperature, pressure, power, gas flow, deposition time) so the coating can be reproduced, and report the characterization the section expects: cross-section thickness, surface and cross-section microstructure, roughness, phase and composition. A coatings paper that shows a top-down SEM and a diffraction pattern but no cross-section and no thickness is the most common characterization gap.

Performance and test standards: Match every performance claim to a measurement. Report adhesion (scratch test, pull-off, or cross-cut with the standard named), hardness and modulus (nanoindentation), tribology (coefficient of friction and wear rate with the counterbody, load, and track length stated), and corrosion behavior (potentiodynamic polarization or EIS with the electrolyte and exposure conditions stated). Naming the test standard (ASTM, ISO) is what separates a tested coating from a described one.

Declarations, figures, and supplementary: Draft the Funding, Author Contributions (by initials), Data Availability, and Conflicts of Interest statements before you upload; for biomedical or bioactive coatings, add the relevant ethics and consent statements. Supply micrographs at the required resolution, and use supplementary files for extended deposition tables, additional micrographs, and raw test data. ORCID is expected for the submitting author, and the system will ask for suggested reviewers in the relevant surface-engineering subfield.

In our pre-submission review work with Coatings manuscripts, four failure patterns generate the most consistent pre-check returns and reviewer friction, and they are testable against your own manuscript before you upload.

Across our surface-engineering pre-submission reviews, the pattern that surprises authors most is that the Coatings filter is not a novelty filter in the Applied Surface Science sense; it is a completeness-and-performance filter. The manuscripts that get returned fastest are rarely bad fabrication. They are competent deposition studies whose characterization is shallow, whose performance claims are untested, or whose subject is really bulk materials. Manuscripts coming through pre-submission review for Coatings split cleanly along these four lines.

Coating fabrication with characterization but no durability or performance data

The single most common pattern we see is a manuscript that deposits a coating, characterizes it with SEM, XRD, and EDS, and stops. There is no adhesion test, no hardness, no wear or friction data, no corrosion measurement: the paper proves the coating exists but never proves it does anything. Coatings publishes coatings as functional surfaces, so an untested coating reads as half a paper at the reviewer stage, and increasingly at pre-check.

The testable version of this failure: list every claim your abstract makes about the coating (protective, wear-resistant, harder, anticorrosion), and confirm each one has a measurement and a named test standard behind it. If your strongest result is "a uniform, dense coating was obtained," the performance package is missing and the fix is to run the durability test the application implies before submitting.

Check whether your Coatings performance data backs every claim →

Incremental composition tweak with no mechanism

The second pattern is a manuscript that varies one composition or process parameter (5 percent more of an additive, a 50 degree change in deposition temperature) and reports the resulting property numbers without explaining why the change works. The data table is real, but the contribution is a parameter sweep, not an insight. Reviewers at Coatings, like reviewers everywhere in surface engineering, ask what the structure-property mechanism is.

We repeatedly see papers where the wear rate dropped or the corrosion current shifted, but the manuscript never connects the result to a microstructural, phase, or interfacial change. The testable version: for your best result, can you point to the cross-section micrograph, phase analysis, or interface evidence that explains it? If the explanation is "performance improved with composition X" and nothing structural backs it, the mechanism is missing.

Check whether your Coatings results explain the mechanism, not just the numbers →

Missing adhesion, wear, or corrosion test rigor

The third pattern shows up at the reviewer stage: performance tests that are present but underspecified. A scratch-adhesion result with no critical load and no standard, a tribology curve with no counterbody, load, or sliding distance, a corrosion plot with no electrolyte, area, or exposure time. The test was run, but a reader cannot evaluate or reproduce it.

In coatings work, where the same coating performs differently under different test geometries, an underspecified test is nearly as weak as no test. We see this most in wear and corrosion sections, where the conditions decide the result. The testable version: for each performance figure, confirm the caption or methods states the full test conditions and the standard.

If a reviewer cannot tell what load or electrolyte produced your curve, the test rigor is not there yet.

Check whether your Coatings adhesion, wear, and corrosion tests are fully specified →

Scope drift to bulk materials or synthesis

The fourth pattern is a manuscript whose real subject is a bulk alloy, a nanoparticle synthesis, or a composite, with a coating step added so the work can target a coatings journal. Coatings is section-based, so a section editor has to place the paper, and a bulk-materials study with a thin coating angle has no home section.

We see this with battery and catalysis papers, powder-metallurgy studies, and synthesis-heavy manuscripts where the "coating" is one figure out of ten. The testable version: read your own title and abstract and ask whether a section editor could name the coating system and the surface property from the first read.

If the coating only appears in one results subsection and the rest is bulk characterization, the scope is drifting and the better home is Materials, Metals, or a bulk-materials journal.

Check whether your Coatings paper reads as a surface study, not bulk materials →

Each of these is something you can check against your own draft before you commit the submission. This guide tells you what Coatings editors look for; the review tells you whether YOUR paper passes the pre-check and the first reviewer pass before you upload. We have reviewed materials and surface-engineering manuscripts targeting Coatings and its peers across deposition methods, corrosion, and tribology.

Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts. Run a Coatings submission package check to see whether your characterization depth, performance data, and section framing will clear the MDPI pre-check.

Coatings reports a median first decision near 13 days and median acceptance-to-publication near 2.9 days. Treat these as planning ranges, not promises: composite-coating, corrosion-mechanism, and bioactive-coating manuscripts often run longer because reviewer search takes time in specialized subfields.

• Day 0: Submission via SuSy. The portal accepts the package and routes it to the section editor for pre-check.

• Days 1 to 3: Editorial pre-check. The editor screens section fit, characterization completeness, integrity and plagiarism checks, and basic soundness.

The fastest returns happen here, before any reviewer is invited.

• Days 3 to 7: Reviewer invitation. Manuscripts that pass pre-check enter single-blind reviewer search, typically targeting two or more reviewers in the relevant surface-engineering subfield.

• Days 7 to 13: Peer review and first decision. Reviewer reports return and the editor issues the first decision, with a median near 13 days from submission.

Major revision is the most common outcome for papers that clear pre-check.

• Days 13 to 30: Revision and acceptance. Revisions are usually requested on a short clock; resubmission and a second review cycle commonly land acceptance inside a few weeks for in-section, complete packages.

• Days 30 to 33: Production and publication. Acceptance to publication runs near 2.9 days at median, so the slow part of the calendar is reviewer search and revision, not production.

This guide was researched and built from primary sources: the sources we checked include the Coatings Instructions for Authors, the journal's aims-and-scope and section pages, MDPI's research and publication ethics policy and editorial-process pages, and Manusights pre-submission review patterns from materials and surface-engineering manuscripts deciding between Coatings and peer surface-engineering journals. We reviewed and compared current MDPI author guidance with recent Manusights work reviews from authors weighing Coatings, Surface and Coatings Technology, Progress in Organic Coatings, Applied Surface Science, and Thin Solid Films. Last reviewed by the Manusights materials editorial team on 2026-06-07.

Source limitations: MDPI can update APC, article-format details, abstract caps, impact-factor figures, and editorial-process numbers after this review date, so verify final administrative details against the official Coatings author pages before upload. Median timelines and the citation metric are reported by the journal and Clarivate and vary by year and subfield. Use this guide for the decision the official instructions cannot answer: whether your characterization depth, performance data, and section framing are ready for the MDPI pre-check.

• Coatings journal profile
• Materials (MDPI) submission guide
• Is Applied Surface Science a good journal?
• Applied Surface Science journal metrics
• Best materials science journals

Before you upload, run your manuscript through a Coatings submission readiness check to catch the section, characterization, and performance gaps the MDPI pre-check filters for. The check is free to run (/ai-review) and takes a single upload.