Revealing the potential of organo-mineral complexes in agricultural application using bibliometrics

Organo-mineral complexes (OMCs) are referred to as biogeochemical black boxes and are widely thought to contribute to the long-term preservation of organic matter. However, the history and potential research di-rections of OMC research, as well as the deep applications of OMCs, have not been fully investigated. We con-ducted a comprehensive bibliometric study based on the Science Citation Index core database publications from 1959 to 2020 to fill this research gap in OMC studies. The results showed that a total of 751 publications involving OMCs (OMCPs) were published. There was a significant positive correlation between the frequency of international associations and the number of OMCPs. A dendrogram containing six categories and 130 keywords was constructed to represent the research content of OMCPs. In particular, the keyword co-occurrence analysis and a laboratory-scale practice jointly verified the feasibility of using silicate minerals and manure compost to produce synthetic OMCs. The life span prediction analysis revealed that the research on OMCs is in the climax stage, while the current number of studies is still less than 50% of the saturation amount. The two most potentially promising research directions are the use of OMCs in agriculture and pollutant control, which currently account for less than 30% and 25% of the saturation amount, respectively. This report clarified the research gap and predicted the development trend of OMC research using bibliometrics for the first time, and highlighted the importance of OMCs in improving agricultural production while stabilizing pollutant migration in agricultural soil.