The rise of preprints in chemistry | Nature Chemistry

"Chemistry is now starting to embrace preprints, with more and more researchers in chemical and materials sciences posting their manuscripts online prior to peer review. Preprints can speed up the dissemination of scientific results and lead to more informal exchanges between researchers, hopefully accelerating the pace of research as a whole....

Several bibliometric studies have shown that preprints also increase the visibility of the work being done5 by combining two distinct advantages: they are open access, and they appear online earlier than the final peer-reviewed publication. This typically translates into more views and higher impact than non-preprinted articles in the same field6,7: namely, preprinted articles typically have better online metrics, attention scores and number of citations8. ..."