Organic Chemistry Lab 310 Fall 2023
Chemistry and Science databases
The core chemistry databases offered by Rutgers are CAS SciFinder-n and Reaxys.
CAS SciFinder-n contains information from Chemical Abstracts Service, which is published by ACS, dating back to 1907. It also contains articles from Medline, and patents from 8 international patents offices. Please see the SciFinder tab and review the tutorials. We will briefly review searching in SciFinder in class.
Reaxys is similar to SciFinder. It contains content from three major data sources: Beilstein, Gmelin, and the Chemical Patent Database. It is useful for researchers who are investigating organic synthesis, and/or searching for data on physical, chemical, spectral, bioactivity, or toxicological properties of chemical compounds. It also contains information for older references dating back to 1771.
Some related databases are:
Scopus contains citations and abstracts of peer-reviewed literature, with over 7,200 journal titles in the physical sciences. Titles included in Scopus are selected based on journal policies, content, journal standing, regularity of publication, and online availability.
Web of Science may also be useful for finding chemical literature, and it also provides a chemical structure search. It includes citations and references for articles in over 12,000 high quality, peer-reviewed journals. It provides complete bibliographic data, searchable author abstracts, and cited references.
Other related databases include PubMed and ScienceDirect.
Find a Database
To see our chemistry and related databases, click Databases next to the Quicksearch box. Then select Chemistry from the Subject dropdown, and click Apply. Here is a link to the list of chemistry databases.
Other sources
There are several online sources available for finding properties and spectra information. Some of these are available only to Rutgers students and faculty, and others are freely available. See the Properties & Spectra page of the Chemistry research guide for more information.
NIST Chemistry WebBook. NIST stands for the National Institiute of Standards and Technology. It is a government agency responsible for maintaining standards used in scientific measurement. In addition to thermodynamic data (thermochemical, thermophysical, ion energetic) ; IR, mass, and UV/Vis spectra is also available in this resource.
A good source of quick chemical information is (surprise!) Wikipedia. The Chemistry portal in Wikipedia is monitored by a dedicated group of chemists, and has been demonstrated to contain reliable information for well-known substances. Use caution, however, as errors may exist.