Research Guides: *Chemistry: Reference

General reference sources

CRC CHEMnetBASE
Compilation of chemical databases. Includes access to The Combined Chemical Dictionary; The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics; Polymers: A Property Database; Properties of Organic Compounds; Dictionary of Drugs; Dictionary of Food Compounds; Dictionary of Marine Natural Products; and Dictionary of Natural Products.

Combined Chemical Dictionary
Includes the Dictionary of Organic Compounds, Dictionary of Natural Products, Dictionary of Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds, Dictionary of Pharmacological Agents, Dictionary of Analytical Reagents.
Comprehensive Organometallic Chemistry III
A collection of authoritative articles on all aspects of medicinal chemistry.
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
Online access to a standard compilation of authoritative data. Includes searching by chemical structure, using a Java applet.
Handbook of Heterogeneous Catalysis
A compendium on preparation, characterization, mechanisms, kinetics, reaction engineering, environmental catalysts, energy-related catalysis, polymerization, and other topics.
IUPAC-NIST Solubility Data
Evaluated solubility data from International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry, and NIST.
Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology
A comprehensive encyclopedia of industrial chemistry.
NCMS Solvents database
Information on solvents, from the National Center for Manufacturing Science.
NIST Chemical Kinetics Database
Critically evaluated data on gas-phase chemical kinetics, from the NIST.
NIST Chemistry WebBook
Critically evaluated data on chemical substances, from the NIST.
NIST Solution Kinetics Database
Critically evaluated data on chemical kinetics in solutions, from the NIST.
Physical Properties Source Index
Recommended databases, web sites, and handbooks for physical and chemical properties of molecules and materials. From ETH Zurich.
PubChem
PubChem provides information on the biological activities of small molecules. It is a component of NIH's Molecular Libraries Roadmap Initiative.
Sigma-Aldrich
Free site by the chemical/biological company Sigma-Aldrich, providing spectral data and other useful information for a wide range of compounds.
Spectral Database for Organic Compounds
Index to electron impact mass spectra (EI-MS), Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR), 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, 13C NMR spectra, laser Raman spectra, and electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra of organic compounds.
Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry
A comprehensive encyclopedia of industrial chemistry.

Wiley Database of Polymer Properties
The Wiley Database of Polymer Properties contains experimentally determined and selected data for over 2,500 polymers. The initial content is derived from the Polymer Handbook. Search features include the ability to search for polymers matching specific properties or ranges of properties, the ability to create custom tables for all the properties of a specific polymer, and the ability to access the full-text html for references to the primary literature via CrossRef.
ChemSpider
ChemSpider is a database of chemical structures. It can be searched by name or structure.

Organic synthesis reference sources

e-EROS: Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis
An online, updated version of the Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis.
Greene's Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis
Name reactions: a collection of detailed reaction mechanisms
Online version of the 3rd (2006) edition of the book by Jie Jack Li.
Organic Syntheses
Full content from the annual and cumulated print volumes. Structure searching requires download of ChemDraw plug-in (NU has site license). If you are at an NU IP address you can download the ChemDraw plug-in. (see ChemDraw link in general reference sources section on this page.)

ChemSpider
ChemSpider is a database of chemical structures. It can be searched by name or structure.

Inorganic Materials

Ceramics WebBook
Evaluated data from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
Diatomic Spectral Database
Spectral data for diatomic moleules, from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
MatWeb
Free source of materials properties, searchable by range of property values.
PGM (Platinum Group Metals) database
Data on platinum group metals and alloys.

Crystal Structures

American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database
A crystal structure database including every structure published in the American Mineralogist, The Canadian Mineralogist, European Journal of Mineralogy and Physics and Chemistry of Minerals, as well as selected datasets from other journals.
Common Molecules Collection
Crystal structures and other data for common molecules.
Crystallography Open Database
Open database of crystallographic information.
Database of Zeolite Structures
Zeolite framework structures approved by the Structure Commission of the International Zeolite Association.
eCrystals
From the University of Southampton
International Tables for Crystallography
Online version of the tables published by the International Union of Crystallography.
Van der Waals Radii and Bond Lengths
From Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre

Cambridge Structural Database System: WebCSD
WebCSD is the online portal to the Cambridge Structural Database, a collection of crystal structures of organic and organometallic small molecules.
Inorganic Crystal Structure Database: ICSD
Northwestern University's subscription is NOT for large project bulk downloads. For research projects requiring bulk downloads, consult with the ICSD helpdesk for details and charges.

The Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) is the world's largest database of fully determined inorganic crystal structures, from elements to quintenary compounds. It contains about 281,000 structures with 6,000 added annually. Each record includes crystallographic data as well as chemical/physical property data and bibliographic information for the journal article referencing the structure.

Get Structures from CCDC
Get information about a specific structure using CCDC number, publication DOI, or CSD refcode.

Biochemistry/Medicinal Chemistry

EMBL-EBI
A resource of data on biological substances, from the European Bioinformatics Institute of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Handbook of Metalloproteins
Comprehenisve coverage of metalloproteins with a number of metals including iron, nickel, manganese, cobalt, copper, vanadium, and zinc.
PubChem
PubChem provides information on the biological activities of small molecules. It is a component of NIH's Molecular Libraries Roadmap Initiative.
RCSB Protein Data Bank
Information about experimentally-determined structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies. from the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics.
Springer Handbook of Enzymes
Second edition of Enzyme Handbook,
3D Macromolecular Structures
Structures of biologically important substances, from the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

BRENDA: The Comprehensive Enzyme Information System
Database of molecular and biochemical information on enzymes.
Comprehensive Medicinal Chemistry II
Comprehensive Medicinal Chemistry II provides an overview of the medicinal chemistry field. It includes all aspects of drug discovery, like major therapeutic classes and targets, research strategy and organisation, high-throughput technologies, computer-assisted design, ADME and selected case histories.