Editorial: TAPPI Journal research themes in 2025 highlighted sustainability and process efficiency, TAPPI Journal February 2026

The most common topics in 2025 – accounting for around 60% of the content – were related to papermaking, additives, and coating. This is due in large part to special issues in January (Barrier Coating Fundamentals ), March (Additives ), August (Paper Physics) , and November (Coating Printing and Surface Enhancement ). An exciting new topic category for a special TAPPI Journal issue was Flexible Packaging  in July, which also relected frowing concerns about sustainability and circularity.

Author: Monica Shaw

Each year, the pages of TAPPI Journal offer more than a collection of technical papers — they provide a sanpshot of where our industry is appling its intellectual energy in research. Looking back at the January through November 2025 issues, there was a distant focus on improving materials performance, strenghtening process efficiency, and integrating sustainability considerations into existing manucaturing processes. A majority of this focus was centered on packaging for a variety of applications.