Research Guides: Property Data for Chemicals and Materials: Home

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Tutorial: How to Find Chemical and Physical Property Information
Finding chemical and physical property data is not always easy because there is no one place where all types of data for all substances is located, and it is not always clear where to look or whether you have looked in the right places. This tutorial will show you how and where to search.

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
Annually published reference source for chemical and physical property data, nomenclature, structure, and composition of substances. Includes physical constants of organic and inorganic compounds, conversion factors, and much more.
Merck Index: An Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs, and Biologicals
Classic reference source for chemists with over 10,000 entries on drugs and pharmaceuticals, common organic chemicals and laboratory reagents. The entries include data such as chemical names, molecular formula, chemical structure, physical data, and literature references.

NIST Chemistry WebBook
Chemical and physical property data from NIST Standard Reference Data Program and outside contributors. Searchable by name, chemical formula, CAS registry number, molecular weight, chemical structure, or selected ion energetics and spectral properties.

CHEMnetBASE
CHEMnetBASE is a reference source for locating chemical facts, properties, literature references, and for performing structure searching.
Knovel
Online access to books, databases, and conference proceedings from a number of publishers that cover all areas of engineering and includes content relevant to related sciences (e.g., chemistry and earth sciences). It includes interactive graphs and tables.

For a tutorial on using Knovel, go to Start a research project with Knovel.

Reaxys (Chemistry)
Provides access to chemical structure, reaction, and property information on organic, inorganic, and organometallic compounds; its contents are derived from Beilstein (organic compounds) and Gmelin (inorganic and organometallic compounds), which date to the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as selected English-language chemical patents.
SciFinder
SciFinder is one of the best databases for topics related to chemistry and adjacent fields. It includes journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, and patents. Find substance and reaction information as well as suppliers and chemical regulatory data.

Registration is required, and you must download the Virtual Private Network (VPN) from UMN Office of Information Technology, set up new account if you don't have one and then log in to it for off-campus access.

Last Updated: Nov 12, 2025 4:30 PM