Investigation Report: "Phase change doped sand storage for isothermal thermoelectric heat delivery" (Energy Materials, DOI: 10.20517/energymater.2026.73)

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

Verdict: Questionable (insufficient evidence to confirm the original allegations). This report reassesses a prior fraud-detection claim against the paper by Qirui Ding et al. published in Energy Materials (2026). The original claim alleged (1) misattributed references (e.g., citing lithium-ion battery and photocatalysis papers in a sand-based thermal-storage study), (2) duplicated figure numbering suggesting copy-paste errors, and (3) inconsistencies in an AI tool usage statement referencing Gemini 2.5 Pro. However, the provided source PDF is truncated at line 1027 and does not contain the References section, full figure captions, or AI declaration. Consequently, the core allegations cannot be verified against the primary text. No fabricated data or image manipulation was detected within the available content. Confidence is low; a full-text review is required before any formal determination of misconduct.

Verdict

Questionable — The original report's severe accusations (mismatched references, duplicated figure numbers, AI timeline conflicts) cannot be confirmed because the supplied manuscript PDF is incomplete, terminating at line 1027 before the References, complete figure captions, or AI usage statement.

Key findings

The manuscript provided is a computational/simulation study on phase-change doped sand storage coupled with thermoelectric heat delivery; no experimental images (Western blots, microscopy) are present, so image-manipulation checks are not applicable.
Reference misattribution (alleged): Original report claims references [30], [31], [33] are lithium-ion battery or photocatalysis papers unrelated to the topic. Unverifiable — the References section is absent from the supplied PDF.
Figure numbering (alleged): Original report claims duplicated "Figure 9" captions in the figure-caption list. Unverifiable — figure captions are cut off at line 1027.
AI declaration conflict (alleged): Original report notes an AI statement mentioning Gemini 2.5 Pro (released 2025-03-25). Unverifiable — the AI declaration section is not present in the supplied PDF.
Table 3 grid-independence values (alleged): Original report cites 422.0 → 420.7 → 420.4 → 420.3. Line 306 of the supplied PDF references Table 3 but does not display the underlying numerical values, so the figures cannot be cross-checked.
No fabricated quantitative results, plagiarised text, or statistical anomalies were identified in the available portion of the manuscript.

Evidence highlights

DOI: 10.20517/energymater.2026.73 (preserved exactly as supplied).
Truncation point: Provided PDF ends at line 1027 ("Figure 10B shows that..."), omitting References, remaining captions, and the AI-and-AI-assisted-tools statement.
In-text citation markers: Reference numbers [30], [31], [33] appear at lines 343, 376, 381, but the corresponding reference entries cannot be inspected.
Table 3 mention: Line 306 references a grid-independence verification table; numerical contents not visible in the supplied text.

Notes

All three primary allegations remain in a "claim-but-unverified" state and should not be treated as confirmed misconduct.
The paper is a purely computational study; traditional biomedical image-forensic tools (e.g., Western-blot duplication analysis) are not applicable.
Recommended next step: obtain the complete PDF including References, all figure captions, and the AI declaration to perform a definitive review.
Limitations: this reassessment is bounded by the truncated source material; absence of evidence in the supplied text is not equivalent to evidence of absence in the full manuscript.