Skip to Main Content

Chemistry & Biochemistry: Physical Property Data

Research guide for chemistry

Physical Property Resources

  • SciFinder (Chemical Abstracts)
    SciFinder (1907 to present) is a comprehensive source for chemical information, covering scientific journals, patents, conference proceedings, and technical reports. SciFinder requires each user to create their own account for access.
  • Reaxys (CSUF - does not subscribe)
  • CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (at the Reference Desk)
    A source for physical science data that spans the full range of the physical sciences and focuses on key data needed by students and professionals.
  • Perry's chemical engineers' handbook  (Reference - TP151 .P45 1997)
  • Landolt-Börnstein Substance / Property Index
    Lists all substances and their properties which are reported on in the indexed Landolt-Börnstein volumes. Over 160 000 organic and inorganic compounds are described by names, molecular structures, chemical abstract numbers and other identifiers.
  • CAS Common Chemistry
    From Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a web resource that contains CAS Registry Numbers for approximately 7,900 chemicals of widespread general public interest.
  • International Critical Tables of Numerical Data, Physics, Chemistry and Technology (1st Electronic Edition)
    Contains physical, thermodynamic, mechanical, and other properties.
  • MatWeb
    Data sheets for over 85,000 metals, plastics, ceramics, chemical elements, and composites.
  • PubChem
    NLM database of compounds, substances, and bioassays, focusing on the biological activities of small molecules.
  • Spectral Database System (SDBS)
    Compiled by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan. Contains mass spec, proton and C13 NMR, FT-IR, Raman, and ESR data for about 34,000 compounds combined.
  • Korean Thermophysical Databank
    "...provides useful inforamtion about thermophysical properties and calculation methods for hydrocarbons, light gases, polymers and electrolyte solutions commonly encountered in chemical engineering practices."
  • ChemSpider
    A free chemical structure database providing fast text and structure search access to over 50 million structures from hundreds of data sources.
  • NIST Data Gateway
    "The NIST Data Gateway provides easy access to NIST scientific and technical data. These data cover a broad range of substances and properties from many different scientific disciplines."
  • Protein Data Bank
    Portal to biological macromolecular structures.
  •  EPA's Chemical Dashboard
    A free database of over 760K compounds.
  • UK National Physical Laboratory (Formerly Kaye & Laby)
    Thermodynamic, electrical, mechanical, acoustical data are just some of the types of data.
  • Thermodex
    Compiled by the University of Texas at Austin Library. Contains links to books and handbooks in their collection. Contains thermodynamic and physical properties data, mostly in print.
  • Material Safety Data Sheets
    Lists the number of MSDS available at each site.
  • Sigma Aldrich Safety Data Sheets
    Allows searching by their product number.  There is also web toolbox, structure searching, and “Ask a Chemist.”
  • ChEMBL
    A manually curated chemical database of bioactive molecules with drug-like properties.

Chemical Catalogs

Reaction Chemistry Online

Search databases like SciFinder and  Web of Science Structure Search

1. Organic Syntheses

2. Named Reactions

Toxicology

SMILES | InChi

SMILES:  Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry Specification  

InChi:  International Chemical Identifier

Both notations are used for describing chemical molecules and can be imported by molecule editors for conversion to 2d or 3d structures.


e.g. Ethanol (C2H5OH)
SMILES = CCO
InChi = 1/C2H6O/c1-2-3/h3H,2H2,1H3

SMILES | InChi Convertor

FAQ's SMILES

FAQ's InChi

IUPAC