Sweet Sixteen Retractions

A conference is taking place in Seoul, Korea right when this article is published. One of its keynote speakers is the German professor of soil science Jörg Rinklebe, objectively the greatest scientist his University of Wuppertal ever had. A Lion of the World, awarded in 2019 by his university for his “international engagement”. Meaning, for papermilling.

Rinklebe runs a gigantic peer review ring with his fellow papermillers, but now he faces a growing avalanche of retractions, currently 16. His university appointed a theologist to investigate the papermilling, and immediately whitewashed Rinklebe. A follow-up investigation was announced but obviously never happened. As science burns, this papermiller plays the flute.

The conference is called APBC 2026, it is about Rinklebe’s favourite topic: biochar. Basically, charcoal, which papermilling scholars like him claim as the ultimate solution to environmental clean-up and all of humanity’s problems. It takes place from 13 to 15 October 2026, and much of Rinklebe’s peer review ring network is there.

Before we proceed to Rinklebe’s retractions, you absolutely must meet his friends and partners in the papermill – peer review ring.

The Peer Review Ring

Rinklebe first featured on this website in this article, as an associate of the Danish papermiller Christian Sonne:

By the way of introduction, here a common paper, where you will notice Rinklebe’s expertise in soil science is in conflict to the topic of animal ecology:

Su Shiung Lam, Kit Wayne Chew, Pau Loke Show, Nyuk Ling Ma , Yong Sik Ok , Wanxi Peng , Aage K.O. Alstrup , Douglas H. Adams , Jörg Rinklebe, Christian Sonne Environmental management of two of the world’s most endangered marine and terrestrial predators: Vaquita and cheetah Environmental research (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109966

If you wonder how that passed peer review: Rinklebe was at that time Associate Editor, in 2022 he was appointed by Elsevier as Editor-in-Chief of Environmental research. he flooded the journal with papermill trash, and was eventually quietly removed from the editorial board completely. The experts on cheetahs and vaquitas included several major papermillers and members of Rinkelbe’s peer review ring: Su Shiung Lam, Kit Wayne Chew, and especially Pau Loke Show, professor at UCSI University in Malaysia, who by now has over THIRTY retractions.

A very special coauthor here is Yong Sik Ok, professor at Korea University in Seoul, whose relationship to Rinklebe goes further than a mere academic cooperation. The two men are very close friends.

YS Ok is not listed among the speakers of APBC 2026, but he plans to be there, just to be with Rinklebe.

The speakers include next to Rinklebe his close associates Daniel C.W. Tsang (or Dan Tsang), professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Daniel Alessi, professor at University of Alberta in Canada, now professor at University of Texas at Austin, USA. Alessi’s professorships are sponsored by Encana/Ovintiv and Getty Oil. I hope you appreciate the implication of the fossil fuel industry bribing North Amercian universities to employ a papermiller as professor for… literally climate change. Do the oil companies also pay Alessi’s papermill fees?

Other APBC 2026 speakers include a known papermiller from Sri Lanka, Meththika Vithanage, who is, how interesting, professor at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen, and adjunct professor at University of Western Australia. Here is a retraction of hers with Ok, with Tsang being the editor:

Yinfeng Xia , Lifang Zhu , Nan Geng , Debao Lu , Cundong Xu , Piumi Amasha Withana , Meththika Vithanage , Eakalak Khan, Yong Sik Ok Nitrogen transformation in slightly polluted surface water by a novel biofilm reactor: Long-term performance and microbial population characteristics The Science of The Total Environment (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154623 

“Post-publication, an investigation was conducted on behalf of the journal by Elsevier’s Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics team. This investigation discovered that the review of this submission was handled by the Associate Editor Daniel C.W. Tsang despite an extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication and an ongoing co-publication at the time this manuscript was submitted, with one of the paper authors Yong Sik Ok.

Furthermore, acceptance of this article was partly based upon the positive advice of multiple reviewers who were closely linked to two of the authors Yong Sik Ok and Meththika Vithanage. This compromised the editorial process and breached the journal’s policies.”

(Retraction 29 July 2026)

Vithanage has two more retractions, both with Ok: Gunarathne et al 2019 in the same Elsevier journal (with Alessi as coauthor), retracted for Tsang acting as editor.

YS Ok calls Rinklebe his “best friend”. He himself has 8 retractions now, less than Rinklebe, imagine this. Some retractions also happened in STOTEN, the editor was often Tsang.

In September 2024, Rinklebe was keynote speaker at the GTSE24 conference in Poland, organised by the rector of Poznan University of Technology and amateur papermiller Teofil Jesionowski and his right-hand man, Jakub Zdarta. The conference website was erased meanwhile because it was basically a papermill advertisement, but I saved the conference schedule and even the full program book:

Show and Sonne were members of the Scientific Committee of this conference, which also included the Belgian papermiller Raf Dewil of KU Leuven, the Iranian papermiller in Sweden Mohammad Taherzadeh of University of Borås, and other questionable characters and known papermill fraudsters like Sunita Varjani or Dai Viet N Vo.

Next to Rinklebe, other plenary speakers were the papermill fraudsters Huu Hao Ngo, Long D. Nghiem, Qiang Liu, plus papermill heavyweights Ashok Pandey of CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, and Damia Barcelo, director of the Catalan Institute for Water Research in Spain. Barcelo is not just a massive papermiller (see his PubPeer record here), but also an antivaxxer, and an industry shill who was exposed by El Pais for taking Saudi bribes.

Unlike Rinklebe, who is flooded with retractions, Sonne has merely three. Maybe his University of Aarhus does a better job in supporting him. They even threatened to sue me for writing about their little genius. On 19 September 2025, I received this message from the Danish Centre for Environment and Energy (DCE) at Aarhus University, subject: “Unauthorised use of a photograph – j.nr. 2025-089687“

“Att. Leonid Schneider

It has come to our attention that Professor Christian Sonnes’s personal photograph has been published on your site without his prior consent.

Please be advised that:

1. The use of Professor Sonnes’s image constitutes a violation of his personal rights and data protection laws (including GDPR).
2. Such use is not covered by any “fair use” or citation exception, as a portrait photograph does not fall within the scope of scholarly citation.
3. Continued publication of the image without authorization exposes you to liability, including but not limited to:

• Formal complaints to data protection authorities,
• Civil claims for damages and injunctive relief,
• Possible reputational consequences within the academic publishing community.

We therefore demand that you immediately remove Professor Sonnes’s photograph from all online platforms and any printed versions.

In addition, please note that we are currently reviewing our position with regard to the manner in which Professor Sonne has otherwise been cited and subjected to what we consider to be intimidatory treatment on your site. We reserve all rights in this respect.

Regards,

Gry Bagger
Chief legal advisor
Cand. Jur.

Since I failed to comply, the Aarhus university tried something else. They went to the Danish production company which made the 2015 film Men & Chicken“. It was a horror comedy so unhinged and sick it befitted to illustrate that university, that I used a movie still as a cover image for my article. A representative of M&M Productions wrote to me on 2 October 2025: “You have no permission to use the photos and could you please remove them asap.” This time, I eagerly complied and make a cartoon, of some random Danish man with a chicken, which you can see above.

In June 2025, the Lion of the World and his University of Wuppertal organised a workshop titled: “Boost your Scientific Career – Building Research Vision and Impact”.

Speakers were:

• Rinklebe, talking about “Effective scientific communications through scientific publications”,
• YS Ok, talking about “Building international collaboration and recognition: how to develop and maintain that global network”
• Dan Tsang talking about “Publishing peer-reviewed articles for early-career researchers”,
• Alessi, talking about “Setting yourself up for success: practical tips and advice for students for a career in academia”,
• Filip Tack, professor at Ghent University in Belgium, who spoke about “From scattered notes to superpower: build your second brain with effective note-taking”.

By the way, two year ago in October 2024 Tack organised his own papermill event at Ghent University, “Building Research Vision and Impact” – it featured Rinklebe, Alessi and Tsang giving exactly the same talks as later in Wuppertal. The workshop was “Funded by the European Union […] with support from the Flemish government“ and is mentioned in this article:

Elsevier is now mass-retracting stuff to save its journal The Science of The Total Environment (STOTEN) after it lost its Clarivate listing for papermill infestation in late 2025. The Editor-in-Chief used to be the aforementioned Spanish papermiller, antivaxxer and shill Barcelo, he opened the flood gates to the papermills. Barcelo was kicked out as editor, but strangely he himself never retracted a single paper, even those he edited himself as editor, maybe uses his saudi bribes to bribe Elsevier back? Tack was also removed from STOTEN‘s editorial board, even if he still boasts being an editor there.

Alessi, Ok and Tack recently lost this STOTEN paper, because it was edited by Tsang:

Wei Zhang , Waqar Muhammad Ashraf , Sachini Supunsala Senadheera , Daniel S. Alessi, Filip M.G. Tack, Yong Sik Ok Machine learning based prediction and experimental validation of arsenite and arsenate sorption on biochars The Science of The Total Environment (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166678

“This investigation discovered that review of this submission was handled by Associate Editor Daniel C.W. Tsang despite an extensive record of collaboration, including ongoing co-publication during the time of submission, with two of the paper authors, Daniel S. Alessi and Yong Sik Ok, at the time this manuscript was submitted. […]

The authors disagree with retraction and dispute the grounds for it.”

(Retraction 1 October 2026)

Also in STOTEN, Tsang and Alessi recently lost their paper Kim et al 2018 to a retraction because Tack acted as its editor.

Sweet Sixteen

Back to Sonne’s friend “Univ.-Prof. Prof. mult. Dr.-Ing. agr. Rinklebe” as his university of Wuppertal wants us to address him. This was his first-ever retraction, the last author on this retraction is Rinklebe’s papermill dealer Parvaiz Ahmad, a fraudster with an unclear affiliation in India and with around 70 fake papers on PubPeer (namesakes likely):

1. Vaseem Raja , Sami Ullah Qadir , Naveen Kumar , Abdulaziz Abdullah Alsahli , Jörg Rinklebe , Parvaiz Ahmad Melatonin and strigolactone mitigate chromium toxicity through modulation of ascorbate-glutathione pathway and gene expression in tomato Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2023.107872 

The paper also contained false statistics, unusual expressions, data mismatch, and nonsense references. What can you expect from a papermill. The retraction was dated February 2026:

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editors-in-Chief. Concerns were raised about similar panels in Figure 1, various statements not supported by the purported references, the error bars of various bar charts and the reliability of the data in the Table 2, as described on https://pubpeer.com/publications/BFB3B0DA15EDE40FC00F57CFF3FFFB. Additionally, inconsistencies were identified in the underlying datasets which were provided by the authors upon journal request. These issues undermine confidence in the findings reported. Therefore, the editors agree that retraction is necessary to maintain the scientific record’s integrity. The journal apologizes to the readers for any inconvenience caused.”

Ahmad and Rinklebe published a lot together, almost 30 of their joint papers were flagged on PubPeer, mostly for peer review manipulation. Ahmad has currently 13 retractions, less than Rinklebe.

Here is Rinklebe’s and Ahmad’s retraction for nonsense references, a typical papermill problem:

2. Sukhmeen Kaur Kohli , Harsimran Kaur , Kanika Khanna , Neha Handa , Renu Bhardwaj , Jörg Rinklebe, Parvaiz Ahmad Boron in plants: uptake, deficiency and biological potential Plant Growth Regulation (2023) doi: 10.1007/s10725-022-00844-7

“The Editor in Chief has retracted this article. The initial concern was raised because several references appeared to be missing, irrelevant, or failing to illustrate the text that referenced them. The authors offered to add or replace the references. However, this being a review article, the Editor has lost confidence in its integrity. The authors do not agree to this retraction.”

(Retraction 16 September 2026)

Retraction Watch recently wrote about Rinklebe, and even interviewed him. Apparently, our Lion of the World became victim of a confusion about editorial rules about conflicts of interests which were changed by Elsevier and its journal STOTEN after Rinklebe’s otherwise perfectly excellent research papers were published. Here is what Rinklebe told to concerned watchdogs:

“At the time, I did not understand my previous professional collaborations with the assigned editors to constitute a disqualifying conflict under the policies and practices then applicable,” he said. “I complied with the disclosure requirements presented to me through the applicable submission procedures. […]
What I object to is the retrospective application of responsibility to me for editorial decisions made within Elsevier’s own system, particularly where the system itself raised no objection at the time and where no evidence of interference with the scientific review has been presented”

Retraction Watch surely had their reasons for omitting some important information here. Thing is, while Elsevier did take the easiest route to justify retracting Rinklebe’s papers with editorial conflicts of interests, in some cases they did bother to prove that his papers were scientifical nonsense, written by people (or machines) who had absolutely no clue of basic chemistry or science in general.

The last author on this retraction is again Ahmad, flagged for nonsense references:

3. Muhammad Ayub , Hira Javed , Abdur Rashid, Wardah Hayat Khan , Asif Javed , Tariq Sardar , Ghulam Mujtaba Shah , Ajaz Ahmad , Jörg Rinklebe , Parvaiz Ahmad Hydrogeochemical properties, source provenance, distribution, and health risk of high fluoride groundwater: Geochemical control, and source apportionment Environmental pollution (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2024.125000 

Here is the retraction dated 15 September 2026, which basically declares all authors to be scientifically incompetent at best:

“Post publication, concerns were raised regarding the scientific merit of the article on PubPeer. Upon post-publication evaluation by the EiC, it was determined that the article contains fundamental flaws in the calculation and reporting of health risk assessment metrics, pervasive errors in data analysis and interpretation, and serious lapses in scientific rigor and reporting standards. These issues undermine the scientific validity of the study. The journal requested clarifications and raw data from the authors to address the concerns raised. However, the response and data provided were unsatisfactory. Therefore, the Editor has lost confidence in the results and conclusions and has decided to retract the article. The authors do not agree with this retraction.””

Here another retracted paper of Rinklebe’s with Ahmad.

4. Abdur Rashid, Muhammad Ayub , Xubo Gao , Seema Anjum Khattak , Liaqat Ali , Chengcheng Li , Ajaz Ahmad , Sardar Khan , Jörg Rinklebe, Parvaiz Ahmad Hydrogeochemical characteristics, stable isotopes, positive matrix factorization, source apportionment, and health risk of high fluoride groundwater in semiarid region Journal of Hazardous Materials (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.134023

The retraction, dated 5 September 2026, made clear that Rinklebe is scientifically illiterate:

“Post-publication, concerns were raised with the journal regarding the health-risk assessment reported in the article.

On evaluation it was determined that the reference dose applied to phosphate in the exposure assessment was that of white phosphorus rather than of the phosphate anion, which inflated the phosphate hazard quotient and the total hazard index (THI) reported in the article and its supplementary data. The authors identified the cause of this error and submitted a correction; however, the Editor-in-Chief determined that, taken together with the concerns below, the article should be retracted.

The journal also identified that the authorship of the article changed between the original submission and the revised version, with one author added and one author removed, without the approval of the journal editor as required by the journal’s authorship policy. The authors have stated that the change was agreed by all authors, the change was not, however, submitted to the editor for approval at the revision stage.

Furthermore, The journal also found a significant increase of citations to papers published by the authors, Abdur Rashid, Muhammad Ayub, Xubo Gao and Liaqat Ali. In the original submission Abdur Rashid received 12 citations, his increased to 16. Muhammad Ayub received 0 citations, this increased to 8. Xubo Gao received 3 citations, this increased to 10, Liaqat Ali received 0 citations, this increased to 7.

The Editor has determined that the authorship cannot be relied upon and has lost confidence in the results and conclusions of the article and has determined it should be retracted.

The authors disagree with retraction and dispute the grounds for it.”

And another retraction where Rinklebe was shamed and ridiculed:

5. Muhammad Mahroz Hussain, Muhammad Junaid Nazir, Qasim Ali, Nabeel Khan Niazi , Hamna Bashir, Shengsen Wang, Jörg Rinklebe, Ghulam Abbas , Sarmad Frogh Arshad, Muhammad Anwar Carbon-based amendments for sustainable remediation of arsenic-contaminated paddy soils: An insight to greenhouse gases Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2025.118382 

There were many other criticism of this study’s content. The retraction happened just a few months after the Pakistani papermill study was published, but was dated by Elsevier to 1 April 2026:

“The article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief because the errors that the authors identified in the published paper were too extensive to publish a correction: The errors in the manuscript include inaccurate statistical labels on several illustrations, and the duplication/errors of the speciation chemistry in the water. These errors have a material impact on the scientific content of the paper. A lack of scientific understanding is also shown, for example, the anion concentrations could not be the same. The numerous errors show a lack of proper data management and failure to check the original submission. Figure 1 has statistical labels indicating differences when the error bars overlap. The arsenic pool in the published paper has units of mg/kg. Chitinase activities in soil are usually a few hundred nmol/g/h, but the values in the paper are thousands, indicating calculation errors. Similarly, leucine peptidase activity in soils is usually only a few nmol/g/h up to a few hundred in extreme situations – values in the published paper exceed 8,000. Calculation errors are evident throughout the publication.

Overall, the editor has no scientific confidence in the author’s explanations and there is clear evidence of introducing even more errors should their suggested revision be incorporated into the publication.”

An award-winning German professor and an academic celebrity is basically called a scientificality illiterate imposter.

For those still not sure about Rinklebe’s papermilling, this retraction will help. It also features his regular collaborator Mary Beth Kirkham, professor at Kansas State University, and two professors at University of Western Australia, Nanthi Bolan and Kadambot Siddique:

6. Shiv Bolan, Hasintha Wijesekara, Dhulmy Amarasiri , Tao Zhang , Péter Ragályi , Milka Brdar-Jokanović, Márk Rékási, Jui-Yen Lin , Lokesh P. Padhye, Haochen Zhao , Liuwei Wang , Jörg Rinklebe, Hailong Wang, Kadambot H.M. Siddique, M.B. Kirkham, Nanthi Bolan Boron contamination and its risk management in terrestrial and aquatic environmental settings The Science of The Total Environment (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164744 

Hailong Wang is professor at Foshan University in China and another member of Rinklebe gang, and a speaker at the ABPC 2026 conference. Here is the retraction from 18 July 2026 (highlights mine):

“This article has been retracted at the request of a Journal Associate Editor.

Post-publication, an investigation was conducted on behalf of the journal by Elsevier’s Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics team. This investigation discovered suspicious changes in authorship between the original submission, the revised version and the published version of this paper.

During revision, the authors Deyi Hou and Liuwei Wang were added to the paper; subsequently the author Deyi Hou was removed post acceptance, without explanation and without exceptional approval by the journal editor, which is contrary to the journal policy on changes to authorship.

Furthermore, the review of this submission was handled by the Associate Editor Deyi Hou, despite also being listed as an author of this article. This compromised the editorial process and breached the journal policies.

Elsevier’s Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics team reached out to the authors for an explanation, but they failed to provide a satisfactory explanation to these changes.[…]

The authors disagree with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it.”

The Chinese scholar Deyi Hou is associate professor at Tsinghua University in China and a key member of Rinklebe’s gang. I wrote about his papermilling activities in May 2025 Shorts, on the occasion of Hou having published in Science (Hou et al 2025). After some prompting from Alexander Magazinov and yours truly, Science‘s editor Holden Thorp now agreed to have a look into their editorial process, but apparently nothing ever came out of it.

Hou has currently four retractions, because his friend and regular coauthor Tsang acted as editor. Here for example is one for Hou, Rinklebe, Kirkham, Siddique and Bolan, plus yet another plus University of Western Australia professor, Lynette Abbott:

7. Shiv Bolan , Shailja Sharma , Santanu Mukherjee , Manish Kumar , Ch. Srinivasa Rao , K.C. Nataraj , Gurwinder Singh , Ajayan Vinu , Arnab Bhowmik , Harmandeep Sharma , Ali El-Naggar , Scott X. Chang , Deyi Hou, Jörg Rinklebe, Hailong Wang, Kadambot H.M. Siddique, Lynette K. Abbott, M.B. Kirkham , Nanthi Bolan Biochar modulating soil biological health: A review The Science of The Total Environment (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169585

The paper was retracted on 10 August 2026 because the editor Tsang “extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication, with six of the paper authors Ali M El-Naggar, Scott X. Chang, Deyi Hou, Jrg Rinklebe, Hailong Wang, and Nanthi Bolan” (typo Elsevier’s).

For the next retraction, Rinklebe’s friend Hou was fingered as corrupt editor. We see again Siddique and Bolan as coauthors, plus Jason Unrine, professor at University of Kentucky, and his Ukrainian wife and department colleague Olga Tsyusko-Unrine:

8. Lokesh P. Padhye , Tahereh Jasemizad , Shiv Bolan , Olga V. Tsyusko , Jason M. Unrine , Basanta Kumar Biswal , Rajasekhar Balasubramanian , Yingyu Zhang , Tao Zhang , Jian Zhao , Yang Li , Jörg Rinklebe, Hailong Wang, Kadambot H.M. Siddique , Nanthi Bolan Silver contamination and its toxicity and risk management in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems The Science of The Total Environment (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161926

“This article is being retracted at the request of an impartial field expert acting in the role of an independent Publishing Ethics advisor.

Post-publication, an investigation was conducted on behalf of the journal by Elsevier’s Research Integrity & Publishing Ethics team with guidance from the Independent Publishing Ethics Advisor. This investigation discovered that the review of this submission was handled by Associate Editor, Deyi Hou, despite an extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication, as well as an ongoing collaboration on a co-publication with three of the paper authors, Jorg Rinklebe, Nanthi Bolan, and Hailong Wang, at the time this manuscript was submitted. […]

The co-authors Jason M. Unrine and Olga V. Tsyusko agree with retraction. The other co-authors disagree with retraction and dispute the grounds for it.”

(Retraction 25 September 2026)

These STOTEN papers were retracted because Tsang acted as editor, the retraction notices mentioned “an extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication during the time of submission” with Rinklebe and his papermill dealer Sabry Shaheen, We are told that “The authors disagree with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it“:

9. Sabry M. Shaheen, Hsin-Yu Chen , Hocheol Song, Jörg Rinklebe, Zeng-Yei Hseu Release and mobilization of Ni, Co, and Cr under dynamic redox changes in a geogenic contaminated soil: Assessing the potential risk in serpentine paddy environments The Science of The Total Environment (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158087 (Retraction 7 August 2026)
10. Shuai Zhang , Lulu Wei , Lukas Trakal , Shengsen Wang , Sabry M. Shaheen , Jörg Rinklebe , Qing Chen Pyrolytic and hydrothermal carbonization affect the transformation of phosphorus fractions in the biochar and hydrochar derived from organic materials: A meta-analysis study The Science of The Total Environment (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167418 (Retractiion 20 August 2026)
11. Han Zhang , You Li , Ronghua Li , Weilong Wu , Hamada Abdelrahman , Jianxu Wang , Samir G. Al-Solaimani , Vasileios Antoniadis, Jörg Rinklebe, Sang Soo Lee , Sabry M. Shaheen, Zengqiang Zhang Mitigation of the mobilization and accumulation of toxic metal(loid)s in ryegrass using sodium sulfide The Science of The Total Environment (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168387 (Retraction 26 September 2026)
12. Manish Kumar , Nanthi Bolan , Tahereh Jasemizad , Lokesh P. Padhye , Srinidhi Sridharan , Lal Singh , Shiv Bolan , James O’Connor, Haochen Zhao , Sabry M. Shaheen, Hocheol Song, Kadambot H.M. Siddique, Hailong Wang, M.B. Kirkham, Jörg Rinklebe Mobilization of contaminants: Potential for soil remediation and unintended consequences The Science of The Total Environment (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156373 (Retraction 1 October 2026)

Naturally, Tsang is a speaker at the APBC 2026 conference, introduced as Editor-in-Chief of npj Materials Sustainability. Imagine how much papermill money he brings himself and Springer Nature with this position.

This Rinklebe paper was retracted on 1 October 2026 because “this submission was handled by the Associate Editor Daniel C.W. Tsang despite an extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication, with two of the paper authors Jorg Rinklebe and Binoy Sarkar“.

13. Saptaparnee Dey , Tapan Jyoti Purakayastha , Binoy Sarkar , Jörg Rinklebe, Sarvendra Kumar , Ranabir Chakraborty , Anindita Datta , Khajanchi Lal , Yashbir Singh Shivay Enhancing cation and anion exchange capacity of rice straw biochar by chemical modification for increased plant nutrient retention The Science of The Total Environment (2023) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163681

This Binoy Sarkar fellow is a Senior Research Fellow at Adelaide University in Australia, and of coruse a regular coauthor of Rinklebe, YS Ok and other members of this peer reveiw ring, as visialised by his over 60 papers on PubPeer. Sarkar has only one more retarction so far, with Ok (Zhang et al 2022).

With his biochar papermill trash, Rinklebe literally is The Man Who Soiled The World.

This Rinklebe paper was retracted on 26 August 2026 because the Belgian papermiller Tack acted as editor “despite an extensive record of collaboration, including co-publication, with three of the paper authors Jorg Rinklebe, Daniel C.W. Tsang, and Yong Sik Ok“:

14. Ali El-Naggar , Mi-Hee Lee , Jin Hur , Young Han Lee , Avanthi Deshani Igalavithana , Sabry M. Shaheen, Changkook Ryu , Jörg Rinklebe, Daniel C.W. Tsang, Yong Sik Ok Biochar-induced metal immobilization and soil biogeochemical process: An integrated mechanistic approach The Science of The Total Environment (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134112

About Shaheen: he was installed as “researcher” at University of Wuppertal since 2018, obviously on advice of Rinklebe. Shaheen earned his German university seven retractions already, his profile is active as of today:

This doesn’t necessarily mean the University of Wuppertal is paying Shaheen as a faculty member, although they might. The main point of this affiliation charade is that the German university continues listing Shaheen’s papermill fabrications on their research reports to the state government. We saw somethign similar in Tübingen:

In this regard, this retraction for Rinklebe and Shaheen is something the University of Wuppertal will struggle to explain as unfair:

15. Muhammad Imran Ghani , Mohammad Abass Ahanger , Tanveer Ali Sial , Sajjad Haider , Junaid Ali Siddique , Ruidong Fan , Yanjiang Liu , Esmat F. Ali , Manish Kumar , Xing Yang , Jörg Rinklebe, Xiaoyulong Chen, Sang Soo Lee, Sabry M. Shaheen Almond shell-derived biochar decreased toxic metals bioavailability and uptake by tomato and enhanced the antioxidant system and microbial community The Science of the total environment (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172632 

The paper was utter nonsense, most of the numbers in it made no sense. One has to be an award-winning German professor to understand that one can extract much more heavy metals from soil that were even there, and that total carbon content in almond shells biochar can add up to 117%. The retraction from 1 January 2026 went (highlight mine):

“This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor.

The authors responded to concerns raised on PubPeer at https://pubpeer.com/publications/475D6897C3C9546AA0294801B0B508, including the submission of a draft Corrigendum, which were passed onto the Editor for assessment. The Editor agreed that there are numerous concerns related to poor data quality. For example, in Table S1 the total potassium content (TK) = 6410 g ± 13.2 g kg-1, meaning that one kg of soil contained about seven kg of potassium. Also of note is Figure 3D which is an enlarged and differently labelled part of Figure 3C, but which is supposed to show a different treatment. For these reasons, the Editor has lost confidence in the reliability of the findings presented in this article, and is retracting it.”

Clearly Elsevier operates on the principe of retracting a certain muber of papers at STOTEN, and certainly not retracting everything which is fraudulent. Because this one by Rinklebe and Shaheen remains standing so far:

Sajid Mehmood, Waqas Ahmed , Juha M. Alatalo , Mohsin Mahmood , Muhammad Imtiaz , Allah Ditta , Esmat F. Ali , Hamada Abdelrahman , Michal Slaný , Vasileios Antoniadis , Jörg Rinklebe, Sabry M. Shaheen , Weidong Li Herbal plants- and rice straw-derived biochars reduced metal mobilization in fishpond sediments and improved their potential as fertilizers The Science of the total environment (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154043 

Here a recent retraction for Shaheen and Rinklebe, very unusally in ACS. This despite the presence of several white professors, including the Dean for Research at Doerr School of Sustainability in Stanford, Scott Fendorf. The notice is weird, because the publsiher forced the authors to retract “voluntarily”:

16. Jianxu Wang , Sabry M. Shaheen , Ann-Christin Swertz , Chengshuai Liu , Christopher W.N. Anderson , Scott Fendorf , Shan-Li Wang , Xinbin Feng , Jörg Rinklebe First Insight into the Mobilization and Sequestration of Arsenic in a Karstic Soil during Redox Changes Environmental Science & Technology (2024) doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c02989

“The authors voluntarily retract this article (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.4c02989) due to insufficient clarity and attribution in the published scientific record.

The relationship between this article and a previous publication focused on different research questions arising from the same redox-controlled microcosm study (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c07321) was not clearly distinguished. In particular, the shared study site and experimental material were not described with sufficient clarity; certain supporting data [pH, OM and total Fe in Table S1; sulfate and DOC in Table S2; Clostridium and Desulfitobacterium spp. in Fig S7; dissolved Fe in Fig 2; original soil Fe XANES in Fig 4] and a figure element [the top panel of Fig 3, -300 mV] derived from the same experiment, were included without explicit attribution. In addition, inadvertent errors occurred in the presentation of the top panel of Fig 3 (-300 mV) and its accompanying figure caption.

The authors provided original experimental records, original image files, supporting materials, and detailed explanations regarding figure preparation to address the issues. Following a comprehensive review of these matters, we concluded that an author-led retraction is the most appropriate course of action to ensure clarity and correct the scientific record.”

(Retraction 29 September 2026)

We completed our sweet sixteen retractions for the Lion of the World. The University of Wuppertal can now build him a candy castle for that.

RESPECT

Now, some of you might accuse Rinklebe for parasitising honest hardworking papermill fraudsters like Tsang for editorial and peer review services. You can’t be further from the truth. Rinklebe himself did a lot of editing and reveiwing for his dear friends!

In the following case, Rinklebe’s editor service caused the authors a retraction. It features the master papermiller Eder Lima, professor at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, with whom Rinklebe published a lot. Also featuring is the Iranian master papermiller Mohammad Reza Saeb, professor at Gdansk Medical University in Poland, previously Nobelium Professor at Gdansk University of Techology. Also on board is another master papermiller, Navid Rabiee, professor at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in Iran. You can read about them all here:

Among other Iranians is Omid Akhavan, who has a major PubPeer record of fraud himself.

Maryam Jouyandeh , Omid Tavakoli , Reza Sarkhanpour , S. Mohammad Sajadi , Payam Zarrintaj , Navid Rabiee , Omid Akhavan , Eder C. Lima, Mohammad Reza Saeb Green products from herbal medicine wastes by subcritical water treatment Journal of Hazardous Materials (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127294 

The paper was initially flagged for editorial conflicts of interests, and then criticised as nonsense by PubPeer users Gymnopus aquosus and Hubert Wojtasek, the latter wrote a full review report about the study’s “errors, misplaced references and misinterpreted results“.

The retraction from 1 April 2026 blamed Lima and the editor Rinklebe:

“Review of this submission was handled by Guest Editor Jörg Rinklebe despite an ongoing record of collaboration and co-publication with the corresponding author Eder C. Lima. This conflict of interest was not disclosed to the journal editors or publisher during the peer review process, compromising the editorial process and breaching the journal’s policies.

Additionally, it was found that one of the reviewers of the manuscript also had a significant record of collaboration and co-publication with the corresponding author Eder C. Lima which was not disclosed during the peer review process of the submission. […]

The authors disagree with the retraction and dispute the grounds for it..”

Before I tell you how the university deals with all that travesty and how guilty Rinklebe feels, here is another paper of his with Shaheen, not retracted because Elsevier isn’t cleaning up that journal. The coauthors include the aforementioned Australian professor Bolan, a University of Copehagen professor called Hans Christian Bruun Hansen, and the Pakistani papermiller Balal Yousaf, professor at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland, where international papermillers keep finding a welcoming home.

This paper is about tomaties fet with yttrium nanoparticles (don’t ask), and was edited by Yousaf’s and Rinklebe’s friend Muhammad Zia-ur-Rehman. It features hand-drawn spectra:

Xueping Wang , Xiaojie Liu , Xiao Yang , Lingqing Wang, Jun Yang , Xiulan Yan , Tao Liang , Hans Chr. Bruun Hansen , Balal Yousaf, Sabry M. Shaheen , Nanthi Bolan, Jörg Rinklebe In vivo phytotoxic effect of yttrium-oxide nanoparticles on the growth, uptake and translocation of tomato seedlings (Lycopersicon esculentum) Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2022.113939 

Yousaf, or “Lord Balal” as he calls himself, has currently three retractions and a massive PubPeer record. Ur Rehman and Yousaf were also seen manipulating peer review process with Rinklebe’s buddy Parvaiz Ahmad, see for example in Ali et al 2019. Rinklebe also acted as handling editor for Yousaf’s papers El-Naggar et al 2022, Rashid et al 2022, El-Naggar et al 2021, Ali et al 2021, and prior to that, for Abbas et al 2019. And Rinklebe’s Danish friend Christian Sonne edited a paper by Rinklebe, Yousaf and another Gliwice papermiller from Pakistan, Qumber Abbas: Abbas et al 2021.

Rinklebe is sure not sulking, certainly not at home. He is travelling the world, meeting his papermilling friends, planning new papers, and his university is more than eager to pay all this. It is nobody’s money after all.

Rinklebe also posts on LinkedIn certificates that he is never a Chinese asset, and whines about Elsevier having allowed characters like him to hijack Elsevier journals and then defecate all over them:

I hate to defend Elsevier here, but: that Elsevier is the enemy of science, says a man who may or not be able to do any actual research without the assistance of papermills, or at least to do research which would also succeed in passing peer review outside of his own peer review ring:

The above comment was Rinklebe’s reply on LinkedIn to a long statement by his most dearest friend YS Ok, who whined there about his own recent retraction and demanded “RESPECT” from the publishers who think of retracting his papermilled fraud:

“RESPECT”? For these sausages? That is all so pathetic.

A Lamb of God

In February 2024, I placed a notification about Rinklebe’s papermilling with the University of Wuppertal. The assigned ombudsman was Thomas Wagner, a theologist from the faculty of Protestant Theorlogy and Biblical Theology, specialising in “Epistemology of the Divine”, “Ancient Israelite Iconography” and “Prophesies”. Wagner demanded from me my “conctact details (name, address and telephone number) to identify you personally“, presumably they always do this to make sure nobody ever dares to report anyone for fear of lawsuits and retaliations.

I exchanged several emails with Wagner, and he always kept telling me whenever I submitted somethign new that he already knew all, without my input. Amazing achievements for a theologist, maybe God spoke to him directly. Wagneralso knew in advance about this bizarre correction Rinklebe and Shaheen published, PubPeer user pointed out that no ethics approval was listed for “human tissue (hair samples)” used in this study:

Lijun Dai , Lingqing Wang, Xiaoming Wan , Jun Yang , Yong Wang , Tao Liang , Hocheol Song , Sabry M. Shaheen, Vasileios Antoniadis , Jörg Rinklebe Potentially toxic elements exposure biomonitoring in the elderly around the largest polymetallic rare earth ore mining and smelting area in China The Science of The Total Environment (2022) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158635

“This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS and was performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects for participating in the study.”

(Corrigendum May 2024)

Where is the number of the ethics appoval though? Alternatively, no human participants existed, it was all fabricated by a papermill.

After a few months, Wagner’s God-guided investigation ended. On 10 June 2024, the Vice-Rector for Research of the University of Wuppertal Stefan Kirsch, informed me in a short email:

“Dear Sir or Madam,

This email aims to inform you on the results of the initial assessment and inquiry process following your allegations of research misconduct.

On March 19, 2024, the Rector of BUW received a report from the Deputy Ombudsperson regarding allegations against Mr. Rinklebe on suspicion of scientific misconduct. In this report, the Ombudsperson advises against a formal investigation. The Rectorate now decided not to initiate a formal investigation or form an investigative committee at this time, as the Ombuds report indicates there is currently not sufficient evidence of scientific misconduct.

Sincerely,

Stefan F. Kirsch”

In August 2025, Wagner informed me that they “already resumed the investigation of this case“. He last replied to me in December 2025, but stopped communication after I pointed out that Rinklebe’s papermilling friend Shaheen has been listed as “researcher” in Wuppertal since 2018.

All my emails to Wagner and his university went unanswered ever since. I later find out that Rinklebe is very engaged in his local Protestant church in Wuppertal, he plays the flute at the Christian services there. Here, you can watch and listen:

Maybe Wagner and Rinklebe pray together, for God to smite me, PubPeer and Elsevier. In any case, it is clearly God’s will that Rinklebe won’t be investigated or sanctioned.

Allow me to close by returning to the current biochar conference in Korea, APBC 2026. The first name on the list of keynote speakers a Polish papermiller in the UK, Ondřej Mašek, Chair of Net Zero Emission Technologies at UK Biochar Research Centre of the University of Edinburgh. He has currently one retraction (Cong et al 2019, for plagiarism) and 11 papers on PubPeer, flagged for editorial conflicts of itnerests and coauthored with Rinklebe, Tsang, Ok, Alessi, Hou, Bolan etc.

Next to Rinklebe, Masek and their papermilling associates and members of the peer review ring, there is another German professor: Yakov Kuzyakov, a russian ork whom his University of Göttingen tried to sack for sexual harassment and alcoholism, failed in court, and decided to make the best of it and profit form Kuzyakov’s papermilling. Maybe that’s why the university pays for Kuzyakov’s trips to Asia, hoping he will do so much sexual harassment there that he will leave Göttingen students alone. Anyway, he now has five retractions, for papermilling and editorial fraud, and you can read about his sexual harassment in the Coda here:

Here is Kuzyakov’s most recent, the ork failed even in being expert in shit, literally:

Qiong Liang , Haiqing Chen, Yuanshi Gong , Hefa Yang , Mingsheng Fan , Yakov Kuzyakov Effects of 15 years of manure and mineral fertilizers on enzyme activities in particle-size fractions in a North China Plain soil European Journal of Soil Biology (2014) doi: 10.1016/j.ejsobi.2013.11.009

“Following an investigation, it was determined that the handling Field Editor, Professor Yakov Kuzyakov, was simultaneously a co-author of this manuscript. This compromised the editorial process and breached the journal’s policies.

The authors were contacted and provided an opportunity to respond; their explanation was not considered sufficient. The Editors have, therefore, lost confidence in the results and conclusions of the article and has determined it should be retracted.”

(Retraction 6 October 2026)

Unlike Wagner, I am no expert in biblical theology. But if Rinklebe is such a good Christian, why is he hanging out with Kuzyakov?

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