Since I have recently posted about Molbank (an Open Access journal of chemical structures and syntheses) I started to have a look at some articles. I should emphasize that I am generally in favour of what Molbank is doing (making information freely available I shall discuss exactly how in a week or so.) But the first article I encountered had a feature that even a non-chemist could spot. I have posted the first part of the article after my comments. Note that I can do this as Molbank allows non-commercial use, whereas some commercial publishers would already be reaching for the lawyers… And please do not take this as a criticism of Open Access – almost all chemical papers that we review using software show one or more detectable and avoidable errors. Take it in fact as a compliment to Openness in that Open papers are exposed, are open to criticism in a way that closed access are not.
My main argument is that if we had semantic authoring tools – this type of error could not occur (or would at least prompt the author):
===================================================================

Microwave assisted esterification using Fe₂(SO₄)₃.4H₂O/concentrated H₂SO₄ as efficient catalyst

Krunal G. Desai^1,*, Kishor R. Desai¹ and D. Padmanabhan²

¹Department of Chemistry, Synthetic Organic Chemistry Research Laboratory, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat-395 007 (Gujarat), India.

Tel: (0261) 2258384, Fax: (0261) 2258384

²Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology, Vashi Complex, Navi Mumbai-400 705 (Maharastra), India.

e-mail: kgdapril@yahoo.co.in

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed

Received: 27 June 2005 / Accepted: 6 September 2005 / Published: 31 March 2006

Keywords: esterification, Fe₂(SO₄)₃.4H₂O/con.H₂SO₄ as catalyst, microwave effect

===============================================