Affordable Sources for Property Data

Authors: Carrie NewsomSusan K. CardinalLast Updated: 3/20/07

A product of the ACS CINF Education Committee

What is property data?

Facts about the physical or chemical nature of a substance, element, compound, or material that are measured through experiment or observed and then recorded.

Flow of property data

Property Data Terminology

Properties often have more than one name or are represented by symbols.

For example:acid dissociation constant

= acidity constant = acid-ionization constant

= Ka

= often represented by pKa

Identifying alternate terminology for properties Use the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and

Physics Use a search engine: The define option in

Google is particularly helpful for finding alternate names

Identifying alternate terminology for properties cont.

IUPAC Gold Book Chemical Properties in Wikipedia

Search Example

What is the boiling point of these compounds that are commonly found in medicine cabinets? Can they safely be left in a car on a hot day?

a) Isopropyl Alcoholb) Acetonec) Hydrogen Peroxide

Evaluating Property Resources Where does the data come from? Authority?

Accuracy? Contains

how many compounds? how many types of properties? properties that undergraduates need? Boiling point,

melting point, density, bond angle, etc. valuable references?

Ease of use/ setup? Cost? Accessibility?

Try Sigma Aldrichhttp://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/SearchResultsPage

Find basic physical properties including melting point, boiling point, density, formula weight, refractive index, density, flash point, toxicity data and IR and NMR spectra for compounds commercially available from all Sigma-Aldrich brands.

Search by name, molecular formula, CAS Registry Number or structure. 

May search full text of catalog.

Type in your compound name and “Go!”

Search sorted by relevancy. Many ways to refine your search. Expand results by clicking on +.

To see properties, click on product number. Different brandsmay have different properties.

Find structure, mf & CAS number. Scroll down to see properties, references and safety information. More information may be found in MSDS and registration is no longer required.

Enable popups to see the MSDS in PDF format. Section 9 has more properties.

If spectra are available, they will be found in the upper right corner under related information. May need to try several brands.

Try Knovel Critical Tableshttp://www.knovel.com/knovel2/Toc.jsp?BookID=761 Find physical, solvent, and thermodynamic

properties. Physical properties including melting point, boiling points, vapor pressure, flash point, etc. are included for inorganic, organic and pure substances.

Search by name, molecular formula or CAS Registry number.

To use Knovel, first register for a free account.http://www.knovel.com/knovel2/free_content.jsp

Use the Advanced Search when searching for properties

Type your substance name as a keyword.

Find the Category of property you are interested in and the specific property. Specify a value, range of values, or simply that it exists.

Be sure to check “My Subscription” or “This Title Only” so you'll only be searching titles you have access to.

The results list will display a list of tables. Click on one to view the properties for your substance.

Each table will contain properties for your substance (and substances with similar synonyms). You can export and sort results.

Some tables contain Equation Plotters, interactive graphs that allow you to plot points on a graph curve.

Units and Unit Conversion

If you need to change from one unit of measurement to another, use Knovel's Unit Converter http://www.knovel.com/knovel2/Toc.jsp?BookID=800

Bibliography

Other property data information web sites ThermoDex LSU: Chemical & physical properties Landolt Bornstein Indices ASU: Index to physical, chemical and other propert

y data Chemical information sources wiki Introduction to physical properties

Bibliography Other property data web sites

Web Elements http://www.webelements.com/

MatWeb http://www.matweb.com/

TOXNET http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/

NIST Chemistry Webbook http://webbook.nist.gov/

ChemFinder http://www.chemfinder.com/

NCBI’s Entrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/gquery.fcgi?itool=toolbar