Skip to Main Content
Syracuse University Libraries

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering

Resources for biomedical and chemical engineering

Property Databases

Best Bets

Tips for Property Searching

  1. Search under all synonyms for the property. Example: dissociation constant or pKa or ionisation constant or ionization constant
  2. Determine property symbol and/or unit.
  3. Try searching for a substance by CAS registry number, chemical name, molecular formula, and/or structure.
  4. If searching by chemical name, use various names: Chemical Abstracts (direct or inverted), IUPAC (direct or inverted), common, trade.
  5. If searching by molecular formula, know how molecular formulas are alphabetized in your source.
    Organic compounds: Carbon, Hydrogen, others in alphabetical order
    Inorganic compounds: May not be indexed as written
    Polymers: Try monomer
    Example: CHNO or HOCN
    Example: KBr or BrK
    Example: SO2Cl or Cl2OS
  6. Search under the subject area as well as the property name. Example: If looking for extinction coefficient, also try UV
  7. In print sources, search by using one or more of the indexes. Example: Dictionary of Inorganic Substances has four indexes: Structural Type, Name, CAS Registry Number, and Element
  8. Use the correct truncation symbol when searching online databases.
  9. If you can't find your property data using these resources, try a RESEARCH TOPIC search in CAS SciFinder-n. CAS SciFinder-n's natural language searching is useful for retrieving obscure terminology.

From Tips For Locating Property Data, University of Wisconsin - Madison Chemistry Library, https://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/propertiesguide.