chemical abstracts research

 —Menu

• You are here:
• American Chemical Society

Chemical Abstracts Service

Accept & Close The ACS takes your privacy seriously as it relates to cookies. We use cookies to remember users, better understand ways to serve them, improve our value proposition, and optimize their experience. Learn more about managing your cookies at Cookies Policy .

1155 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA |  service@acs.org  | 1-800-333-9511 (US and Canada) | 614-447-3776 (outside North America)

• Terms of Use
• Accessibility

Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society

• University of Texas Libraries
• UT Libraries
• Chemical Abstracts
• For New Researchers
• Literature Tutorial
• Support the Library
• Science of Synthesis
• Landolt-Börnstein
• Gmelin Handbook
• Beilstein Handbook
• Textbooks & OER
• Conferences & Symposia
• Tech Reports
• Historical Information
• Free Resources
• Analytical Chemistry
• Biochemistry This link opens in a new window
• Crystallography
• Electrochemistry
• General Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Properties
• Polymers and Plastics
• Safety, Hazards, Environment
• Spectroscopy

• History of Chemical Abstracts ACS Chemical Landmark series.
• Organization
• CA Abstract Numbers
• For Librarians

Abstracts There were 26 weekly issues per semiannual "volume." Each Abstract issue was divided into 80 Subject Sections. An abstract appeared in just one section, based on the novelty of the process or substance being reported in the literature. Each weekly issue also contained indexes by author, subject keyword (not official headings), and patent number. The issue indexes were superseded first by a volume index published every six months, and then by the 5-year Collective Index. (The library did not retain the issue and volume indexes.)

Collective Indexes Every five years CAS published a Collective Index (CI). The 14th CI was published in 2002 and covers the years 1997-2001. The library has all Collective Indexes up to this point. They are divided into:

• Author Index , 1907-2001
• Subject Index 1907-71 (included chemical substance names through 1971)
• Chemical Substance Index , 1972-2001 (includes all CA Index Names used during the specific index period)
• General Subject Index , 1972-2001 (includes all subject and compound-class terms that are not systematic CA Index Names)
• Formula Index , 1920-2001
• Patent Index , 1907-2001

Index Guides The Index Guide (IG) for each Collective Index period provides cross-references from commonly used chemical names to official CA Index Names (with registry numbers) used in the corresponding Chemical Substance Index. It also serves as a thesaurus of all controlled-vocabulary subject headings used in the General Subject Index. The Index Guide should always be consulted before looking up a chemical name or subject term in the Collective Indexes.

Ring Systems Handbook The RSH leads you from a ring or cage structure to the CA Index Name and Registry Number of a ring parent compound, for searching in the Chemical Substance Index. Entries are in ring analysis order and are indexed by molecular formula and Index Name.

Registry Handbook The Registry Handbook - Number Section was a cumulative numerical listing of Registry Numbers assigned to chemical substances from 1965 to 1996. If you have only a registry number and need the CA Index Name for that compound, look it up here first and then use the name to consult the Chemical Substance Indexes. A corresponding Names Section issued on microfiche provided registry numbers for several hundred thousand of the most-indexed common names.

CASSI CASSI (Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index) is the comprehensive and retrospective list of publications that have been indexed by Chemical Abstracts since it began in 1907. It includes journals, books, conferences, and other series, arranged by CA abbreviation. This is the source you use to translate journal title abbreviations into full titles for searching in the library catalog and other finding aids. The last print edition of CASSI (1907-2004) is kept in the Librarian's office. It is also available in a somewhat limited form on the web:

Doing a manual search in printed Chemical Abstracts is a tedious, mutli-step process.  This is how it was done.

• Author: Entries are arranged by last name, then by first and second initials (not by first name). Qualifying text is the title of the document. Coauthors are cross-referenced to first author.
• Formula: Entries contain only abstract numbers unless there is a large number of them, and no qualifying text. It's best to use the Formula Index to get the corresponding CA Index Name, then look up that name in the corresponding Chemical Substance or Subject (1907-71) index, where the entries are more detailed. Formulas are listed in Hill order: C, then H, then other elements in alphabetical order.
• Chemical Substance name: Start with the Index Guide to see if there's an entry for the name you have. If not, use the Formula Index or Ring Systems Handbook to get the name. In the CSI you must use only the specific CA Index Name for that CI period. There are no cross references to earlier or generic names. Names are arranged by "parent" (the structural skeleton) followed by substituents and modifications. Qualifying text in each entry indicates what the document is primarily about, followed by an abstract number. About 600 of the most frequently indexed compounds are called "Qualified Substances." Their document entries are grouped into seven categories: Analysis, Biological studies, Occurrence, Preparation, Properties, Reactions, Uses and miscellaneous.
• Subject term: Check the Index Guide first to find an appropriate term to look up in the Subject Index (1907-71) or General Subject Index (1972- ). Classes of compounds (e.g. Carcinogens), undefined compounds and mixtures (e.g. Gasoline), processes, plant/animal species, and other general topical terms are found in this index, along with cross references and scope notes.
• Patent number: Arranged by issuing country/organization, then by patent number. CA abstracts only the first member of a patent family, and links later equivalent patents to this parent patent. Equivalents are cross-referenced to the parent. Prior to 1981 the equivalents were listed in the Patent Concordance.
• Note Abstract Numbers from the entries of interest. Abstract numbers prefixed "R" indicate a review; "P" indicates a patent.
• Go to the corresponding Abstracts volume and look up the abstract by its number.
• Repeat this process for earlier or later index periods. Remember that Index Names and subject headings changed over time, so consult the Index Guide for each CI period.

For Librarians:  Retention of Chemical Abstracts

• Here's the most important consideration: It's highly unlikely that any scientist born after the mid-1970s would have any experience using print CA (or any printed index for that matter), or even be aware of its existence. Therefore academic libraries should expect all potential use to be initiated and mediated by a library staff member or senior faculty member who has working knowledge of this tool. If no such persons remain on the campus, then print CA is almost certainly a waste of space. (Similarly, there is no longer any practical reason to teach students how to use it!)
• SciFinder is not identical to Chemical Abstracts. All (or nearly all) the metadata content of the latter is included in the CAPLUS file and robustly substance-indexed via the Registry file. But it is inaccurate to say that you can do everything in SciFinder that you could do in the print.
• The Collective subject/substance/formula indexes allow browsing of chemical names, formulas, and subject headings in a way that isn't possible in SciFinder. SciFinder is great for snapshots, but it provides only a limited view of the hierarchical structure of the CA database, or its indexing and nomenclature practices; nor does it allow easy browsing for derivatives, salts, and other variants of a parent structure. In other words, you can't browse online for nearby entries like you can in the print, which removes a serendipity factor. For some purposes, this is an important distinction. Browsing and searching CA indexing terms for concepts, chemical classes, and taxonomic vocabulary from the CAS Lexicon (thesaurus) is possible in SciFinder, as of 2023.
• When you can't figure out how CAS has defined the structure or formula of certain types of compounds, especially inorganic (salts, hydrates, ions, decimals, etc), coordination compounds, and multicomponent substances, SciFinder can be frustrating. Using the Index Guide and Chemical Substance Index can actually save some time, and when you find the Registry number then you can go back to SciFinder, locate the substance record and complete the literature search. (Of course, this method only works for compounds registered before your last Collective Index.)
• Pre-1967 CA abstract numbers are not searchable or displayed in SciFinder, and can only be looked up or verified in the print. These numbers were occasionally cited in the older literature, especially as stand-ins for obscure and foreign documents.
• Some older printed abstracts may contain structure graphics that aren't duplicated online.
• If you have bound any of the six-month volume indexes, and you have the equivalent Collectives and their Index Guides, the former are expendable and should be discarded to save space. And hopefully the indexes in the back of the weekly issues were sliced out and discarded before binding -- those are indeed useless and add a significant amount of linear footage.
• Production of printed CA ceased in 2009, and the hardcopy is now only applicable to historical searching. It is not a viable substitute for any form of current online searching.
• Even if you decide to discard the bulk of CA, consider retaining the most valuable parts, such as the Index Guides (potentially useful for finding contemporary index terms, synonyms, controlled vocabulary, Registry Numbers, etc.). If you wish to split the run by time period, collective wisdom suggests that the older (and smaller) pre-1967 portion of CA is more useful than the post-1967 volumes.
• If the facility lacks space and staff who can retrieve and consult CA volumes to mediate a reference question, stored CA can't be used as designed.
• If storage space is at a premium, it's difficult to justify the space CA would occupy there. (A complete set of CA with indexes can occupy as much as 1000 linear feet of shelving, depending on how a library has bound it.)  The trend toward shared/consortial storage may allow multiple institutions to share a single print copy.
• If the item-specific metadata in your catalog don't include abstract number ranges -- as opposed to issue numbers, which are useless -- remote usage/retrieval of CA volumes becomes even more problematic and impractical.
• ACS does not require institutions to retain print CA for chemistry program approval. (There's no requirement for SciFinder either. See ACS Committee on Professional Training guidelines for more information.)
• Last Updated: Jun 6, 2024 7:57 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/chemistry

• Officers' Message
• Program Highlights
• 2012 Highlights
• Board of Directors
• Donors & Support
• Publications
• Career Services
• Communicating

Back to home page

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS)

CAS ― the World's Authority for Chemical Information

As the only organization in the world solely dedicated to finding, collecting and organizing all publicly disclosed chemical information, CAS serves chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-medical companies as well as universities, government organizations and patent offices around the world with the most comprehensive and authoritative sources of curated and quality controlled chemical and related information. By combining its databases with advanced search and analysis technologies (e.g., SciFinder® and STN®), CAS delivers the most current, complete, secure, and interlinked digital information environment for scientific discovery.

In 2012, CAS continued extraordinary database growth, analyzing more than 1.4 million patents, journal articles and other disclosed research sources, for a new total of more than 36 million records. Updated daily, the CAS reaction database saw even greater gains, with growth exceeding 9.1 million new reactions. Because of the work of the more than 1,000 scientists around the world who assemble, curate, and assure the quality of the CAS databases, researchers can also explore the largest collection of disclosed chemical synthesis information, including more than 47 million single- and multi-step reactions from 1840 to the present.  CAS added thousands of experimental procedures from three high-impact Taylor & Francis journals and also updated SciFinder® with nearly 200,000 additional experimental NMR spectra to help scientists better characterize and identify substances.  Front page graphics from USPTO and structure graphic additions for the CAS Markush database provide additional structure data.  CAS now provides access to more than 4 million experimental procedures for reactions from prestigious publishers including all ACS Publications journals, Taylor and Francis top synthetic titles, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry journals, and patents from the USPTO, European Patent Office, World Intellectual Property Organization, the Japanese Patent Office and the German Patent Office.

The CAS REGISTRY℠ is the world’s largest collection of small molecules.  In December 2012, CAS celebrated registration of the 70 millionth substance in the CAS REGISTRY℠, just 18 months after registering the 60 millionth substance. This potential T-type calcium channel blocker, disclosed in the patent application published by KIPO in Korea, may be useful in the treatment of epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, dementia, and other conditions. CAS REGISTRY℠ also contains more than 64 million sequences. The continual growth and updating of organic and inorganic substances in the CAS REGISTRY℠ database is reported with the REGISTRY counter on the newly-designed CAS website home page . This growth has been complemented by CAS’s expanding coverage of predicted and experimental property values, spectra, and data tags, to more than 3.8 billion by year-end.

CAS patent authority coverage expanded to include Eurasia in 2012. CAS now covers 63 patent authorities worldwide to ensure comprehensive patent information within its databases.  In addition, multiple basics coverage was extended to include patents from all covered authorities.  Scientists can now also uncover more disclosed chemistry in SciFinder® thanks to the backfile addition of Markush structure-containing patents from 1987 to the present.

Enhancements to SciFinder® Improve Researchers’ Workflow, Convenience, and Productivity

Major updates to the web version of SciFinder ® during 2012 provided scientists with new capabilities to further their research. 

• New commercial sourcing features enable researchers to quickly link to, analyze and sort chemical sources by pricing and availability.
• CAS expanded its collection of synthetic chemistry and reactions information in SciFinder® with the addition of experimental procedures from Japanese and German patents (2008–present) as well as from Taylor & Francis journals (1998–present).
• SciFinder® users can now search substances by individual experimental or predicted property, and chemists can target results more efficiently by locating compounds with specific property characteristics.
• Substance searchers now benefit from the convenience of inputting a CAS Registry Number to the structure editor in SciFinder®.  Instead of relying solely on their drawing ability, users can rely on the most widely recognized substance identifier to accurately produce a model for structure-based searching.
• From multiple points within SciFinder®, users can quickly view details related to a select substance or reference using Quick View . This view makes scanning large answer sets easier.
• A new default role (reactant) assigned to the substance or fragment to the left of the reaction arrow improves the precision of reaction searches (the former reactant/reagent role is still an option).
• Researchers can quickly evaluate synthesis options and preferred pathways by grouping reaction answers by transformation type.
• New SciPlanner™ import and export options let researchers share synthesis plans with other SciFinder® users.
• The “Remember me” feature at login allows users to remain signed in to SciFinder® for more convenient access.

A new tagline was established for SciFinder®, the choice for chemistry research™.  This reflects the fact that customers rely on SciFinder® for their chemistry research and builds on the value of chemistry as the central science.  An ad campaign using this tagline was developed to position SciFinder® as the most important tool for chemistry research, with access to the most comprehensive and trustworthy chemistry-related content from CAS. 

Organizations around the globe rely on SciFinder® for accurate, timely chemistry and related information.  In 2012, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library collaborated with CAS to provide enterprise-wide access to SciFinder® so scientists across NIH can now have on-demand access to the most complete and authoritative chemistry content in the world.  In addition, academic institutions around the world continued converting to the SciFinder® Unlimited Access Plan, including the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), which comprises 39 academic institutions in Australia, including the University of Melbourne, Australian National University and the University of Sydney.  

ACS Publications and CAS Jointly Introduce Reference QuickView

Reference QuickView is a dynamic new feature powered by SciFinder® that enables readers of web content to view directly the text of abstracts linked to bibliographic citations within an ACS Publications journal article or book chapter. Readers viewing the full-text HTML version of an ACS article can scan abstracts from the broader literature, across millions of citations drawn from a broad array of scientific disciplines covered by CAS. Navigational features facilitate quick review of an article’s references and corresponding abstracts. Links to the Reference QuickView display are placed conveniently in-line within footnotes found in the article text.

Outstanding Ph.D. Students Representing 12 Countries Participate in the SciFinder ® Future Leaders in Chemistry Program

CAS selected 15 Ph.D. students in the chemical sciences for the 2012 SciFinder® Future Leaders in Chemistry program . Each of these students demonstrated academic excellence, a commitment to research and an appreciation of chemical information, as evidenced through their exceptional essays and impressive letters of recommendation, distinguishing them among the hundreds of students who applied. Since 2010, the SciFinder® Future Leaders in Chemistry program, formerly the SciFinder® Academic Exchange Program, has served as an intensive mini-university where graduate students from around the world exchange ideas and experiences in chemistry and informatics. Participants in the program have the unique opportunity to share their insights on chemical information and learn from their peers.

CAS and its STN® Partner, FIZ Karlsruhe, are Revolutionizing Patent Searching with a New STN®, The Choice of Patent Experts

In December, CAS and FIZ-Karlsruhe announced that Version One of the new STN® platform was made available in beta for fixed fee customers. This was the first major milestone in a multi-year initiative to create the next generation of STN®--The Choice of Patent Experts™.

The focus of this first version was on developing the core search and retrieval system for the new STN®. This release combines the complete CAS REGISTRY℠ and Chemical Abstracts content along with Thomson Reuters’ Derwent World Patents Index® and powerful new search features to support preliminary searches in these key areas:

• Chemistry and general technology research
• Intellectual property, such as basic novelty and prior art
• Due diligence
• First pass freedom to operate

A new approach for STN® is to allow organization of work in projects for easy management of search queries and results. New technologies are designed to process broad and complex searches with industry-leading performance. A new ad campaign was also launched to reinforce STN®’s role as the professional search tool.  The theme of the campaign is It’s hard to get professional results with amateur tools.  The STN® marketing campaign is targeted to professional searchers and appears in print and digital media in North America, Europe, Asia, and China.

• Terms of Use
• Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

Chemistry & Biochemistry

• General Reference Books
• Indexes and Guides
• Internet Resources
• Using Chemical Abstracts
• General Science Resources

About Chemical Abstracts

Chemical Abstracts is the most comprehensive scientific abstracting service in English. It provides a complete bibliographic reference to the original publication and a non-critical summary of its content. Over 15,000 scientific and engineering journals, patents from 26 countries, conference proceedings, reports and monographs are monitored. Over 55% of this material is in English, with the remainder in any of 66 other languages.

Some familiarity with chemistry and its terminology is necessary for the efficient use of this tool. Once the construction of the indexes is understood, there should be little difficulty in the use of CA. However, hands-on experience is the only way a full understanding can be achieved.

Abstracts are arranged in 80 sections grouped under five broad headings and are published weekly.

• From 1907-1996 (v.1-125), biochemistry and organic chemistry are covered in one week; macromolecular chemistry, applied chemistry and chemical engineering, and physical and analytical chemistry in the alternate week.
• From 1997–present, all fields are covered in each issue.

How to Access:

• Individual accounts are required ( registration form ).
• You must create the account while on campus (or using the VPN - see this page: UMSL Information Technology Services ).
• You must use a university email address that ends in umsl.edu. (for students: [email protected] where abc123 is the first part of your email address)
• You will need to create a separate username and password.
• << Previous: Internet Resources
• Next: General Science Resources >>
• Last Updated: Mar 13, 2024 12:41 PM
• URL: https://libguides.umsl.edu/chemistry

• ‹ Prev
• Next ›

1.1 Chemical Information Three Ways: The Big Picture Of Big Information

1.2 approaching the literature: principles to bear in mind when you are searching for chemical information, 1.2.1 scholarly literature is evaluated to uphold scientific integrity and vitality, 1.2.2 data provenance and evaluation is a critical part of the research process, 1.2.3 scientific literature is considered intellectual property, 1.2.4 scholarly literature is structured to facilitate research, 1.2.5 the literature is a web of potential, 1.2.6 libraries and other information providers offer disambiguation, 1.3 getting started with the chemical literature, 1.3.1 your literature research is only as good as your input and process, 1.3.2 how to use the literature to be a more efficient chemist, chapter 1: introduction to the chemical literature.

• Published: 22 Oct 2013
• Special Collection: 2014 ebook collection , RSC eTextbook Collection Product Type: Textbooks
• Open the Chapter PDF for in another window
• Get permissions
• Cite Icon Cite

L. McEwen, in Chemical Information for Chemists: A Primer, ed. J. Currano and D. Roth, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2013, pp. 1-27.

Download citation file:

• Ris (Zotero)
• Reference Manager

To begin, we will consider the ways in which literature is involved in the research process, how scientists are involved in the production and consumption of this literature, and the role of information providers and the library. The scholarly communication cycle is at the core of the scientific endeavor for both research and teaching purposes and is standard practice across the disciplines. Published literature is the lasting product of scientific research. It captures and documents the ideas, methods, results, implications and applications of projects and makes this information available to the broader research community and society to further research developments, grants, products, marketing, competitive advantage, etc .

I recently welcomed a new group of chemistry graduate students with an orientation to the library at Cornell University. We started with a discussion of the role of literature in research, focused on the scope of specific library resources and services available, and highlighted a few key things the students could do right away to get started with their research. The idea was to funnel the vast world of chemistry-related literature into something bite-sized and immediately useful while not losing sight of how much is possible and how important robust literature research is to chemistry. We hope this book will accomplish something similar: provide a highly useful volume for a broad range of information-related needs across the chemistry research process. In this introduction, we hope to cover both the big picture of how information fits into the chemical enterprise and a few useful things to keep in mind when delving into the literature.

To begin, we will consider the ways in which literature is involved in the research process, how scientists are involved in the production and consumption of this literature, and the role of information providers and the library. The scholarly communication cycle is at the core of the scientific endeavor for both research and teaching purposes and is standard practice across the disciplines. Published literature is the lasting product of scientific research. It captures and documents the ideas, methods, results, implications and applications of projects and makes this information available to the broader research community and society to further research developments, grants, products, marketing, competitive advantage, etc. It is important for researchers to determine exactly when in their research process to disseminate their findings to the community and which of the many available avenues of communication is most appropriate. These decisions are influenced by place of work (academic, government, industry), job level, and practices in various chemistry sub-disciplines. The resulting published literature in chemistry is as varied and complex as the science it represents, and includes articles, patents, technical reports, conference proceedings, book chapters, and data sets.

Other complexities of publishing research lie in impact and prestige, discoverability and re-use, and availability and persistence. Tying one's name to research, being published and noted, is important to the success of many scientists. As purveyors of the literature publication process, publishers are also interested in procuring the most critical observations and ideas with the best potential. In addition to channeling the discovery of this research, they have high stakes in assuring the quality of research they publish and upholding the standards of scientific integrity. Peer-review is a long established and well-respected feature of scientific publication across most publishers. Clustering articles by disciplinary interest and novel potential further impacts discovery of worthy research. Well-respected publishers add value to the publication process through careful management of these and other editorial processes.

In addition to furthering knowledge itself, quality scientific research can also lead to new industrial applications and product development, improvements in scientific literacy and education, and informed public policy and national security. The field of chemistry is relatively unique, as it is both an academic discipline and an industry active in research and development. The extensive industrial sector is a heavy consumer of the published research literature, as well as a producer of its own research, primarily expressed in the form of patents. Commercial processes place special demands on presentation, authority, and accessibility of chemical information, which in turn significantly impacts the focus of government research and the experience of the academic chemistry research environment. In addition to publication of primary research, government contribution to the chemical information landscape includes high-quality data sets, standards for processes and safety, and education guidelines. Scientific societies such as the American Chemical Society in the US or the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK play major roles in advocating and focusing on infrastructure for producing, re-using and building on quality scientific information.

The availability and persistence of published literature has a profound impact on the research process. Libraries and other information providers are concerned with the practical issues around discoverability and utility of published information. A variety of commercial and non-profit entities offer specialized tools to help researchers sift through the vast primary chemistry literature of journals, patents, registered compounds, and data sets. Abstracts are increasingly available online at no cost, publishers provide electronic alerts and news feeds, and conferences and social networks further highlight the availability of new research publications. In chemistry fields, most published content requires payment for access, reflecting both the expense to ensure quality and the potential for high-value re-use. With the advent of electronic information, pricing options have shifted from outright sale of copies to licensed access, which in turn has implications for ownership and responsibility of long-term archiving. Libraries remain major access points to and stewards of the chemistry literature; they maintain a high awareness of quality, and advise and collaborate with service providers.

In addition to providing researchers with access points to scientific information, libraries have historically taken on the task of preserving the scholarly literature to enable future use. It is easy to overlook the importance of older publications, but they constitute a significant portion of the accumulated scientific knowledge, and are responsible for supporting scientific development over the past several hundred years. In chemistry, where structural and reaction principles do not change drastically over time, older publications are very often still vital to current progress in a field, and in interdisciplinary research areas, past work is often re-considered from different perspectives. Research libraries worldwide store vast collections of journals in hard copy, often in state-of-the-art, climate-controlled, high-density storage facilities with sophisticated inventory control for easy retrieval. Publishers are also making digital back-files of older articles available for purchase or licensing, and libraries and publishers are working together to pursue preservation solutions, including the development of third-party archiving services, that will ensure access to the content in any future, foreseen or otherwise.

It is as important to develop good literature practices for your work as it is to improve your experimental and technical research skills. Good literature practices in scientific research require regular time spent reading or searching for journal articles and other relevant literature reviews.  One should cultivate this practice to build competence in a new area, keep abreast of activity in areas of interest, become aware of exciting new possibilities and strong research groups, and scope out advantageous opportunities for collaboration and publication. Be aware of the scope of literature and information sources available to support both the theoretical and experimental developments of your research endeavors. The remaining chapters of this volume will introduce and guide you through a broad array of the most critical information resources and searching methods in chemistry research. It is well worth a systematic read to be aware of the landscape, and frequent referral for more focused guidance as you practice your research.

Before proceeding farther into the landscape, there are a few general background areas worth delving into more deeply to better understand the literature resources you will use: basic information evaluation concepts; copyright and other intellectual property matters; how the published literature is structured; connectivity potential in the digital age; how libraries and other information providers can support your research; and the scientific input and approach you bring to your search process.

A basic distinction of scholarly literature is that it has been evaluated to some extent before publication. It is important to the quality of one's own research process to ascertain up front the quality of related research in a discipline. The researcher must ultimately make the final determination if a work is worth looking at, starting with an assessment of how it has already been evaluated by the larger scientific community.

The most common type of primary publication of scientific information for academics is the journal article, and the first entity that decides what primary research is published in journals is usually the journal's editor-in-chief. Editors of scientific journals look for research that is original, scientifically important, and that fits the journal's scope in subject matter and treatment. Further review of manuscripts by published peers in the same research area serves to “flag what's important, set aside what's pedestrian, and abjure what's fraudulent”. 1   A published article that has undergone a robust peer review and editorial process should contain data that tell a story and results that move the state of knowledge forward. The introduction of the article should set the stage for the story of the data analysis, and the novelty and intellectual interpretation of the research should be hammered home in the conclusion, giving a sense of the quality of thinking of the author.

Peer review is not a comprehensive evaluation system; reviewers do not generally repeat the experiments described, although review of supporting data is required in some characterization journals. The actual review process is not fail-safe and varies widely across publishers, which can significantly impact the reputation of a journal. The primary literature may be beset with a myriad of quality issues, including premature publication, lack of novelty, lack of focus or unclear explanation, inadequate review of the relevant literature, inadequate characterization of compounds created or altered in the research, missing or poorly designed experimental controls, failure to address alternate explanations, or unjustifiably strong statements.

Pre-reviewed research content is increasingly available online; conference proceedings, pre-print servers, research manuscript repositories associated with funding agencies, and community-supported, openly accessible and openly reviewed journals are a few of the examples. In the chemical disciplines, first disclosure and peer review of research findings carry significant weight in consideration of provenance, quality, and intellectual rights and are important considerations for the reputation and authority of the researchers themselves and particularly critical for commercial vitality in the industrial sector. Initial publication in an open or pre-peer-reviewed public venue may preclude later publication in journals with higher reputations or patenting to claim exploitable rights.

Even peer-reviewed journals vary widely in their reputation for quality and visibility of the research they publish, which in turn reflects on the reputation of the authors. One indicator of journal performance in contribution to scientific research is the number of citations by other research to the articles published in a particular journal. This principle underlies the Thomson Reuters Journal Impact Factor, which is often used by a broad range of literature users such as publishers trying to attract authors, institutions considering tenure for research faculty, researchers identifying top journals to monitor, and libraries attempting to prioritize access and preservation of journal content. Discovery service providers also consider the provenance of published literature and data, but tend to include a fairly broad approach to sources to give the chemical researcher the fullest information of the activity potential in their research area. Promising new journals may not be indexed until they have proven their potential, maybe through a high Journal Impact Factor, which takes two years to calculate.

Many research areas in chemistry generate and analyze significant volumes of data. Data associated with chemical research can appear directly in articles, in supplementary files referenced by articles, as part of compiled data sets, and in repositories of specialized types of chemical information. The provenance and quality of compound characterization and other published data are particularly important to chemistry research. Results and interpretation are only as good as the data on which they are based, and their potential for meaningful contribution to scientific knowledge depends on their correlation to other evidence or revelation of abnormal observations. As you work with both your own data and those you are re-using from other sources, it is critical to ascertain that they actually represent what they are purporting to and are reliable, based on the quality of the measurement process. The opportunity to apply promising methodologies on large production scales in the commercial sector hinges on adherence to standards and regulations of practice. You can imagine areas of chemistry, such as the development of drug formulations and construction materials, where lack of attention to safety, consistency, and reliability can not only compromise the outcome of the experiment but could potentially endanger vast numbers of people.

Quality data start with robust data collection practices, including documentation, using multiple sources of measurement, calibration of equipment, and using controls and/or standard reference data. It is most important for users of data to know how it was collected to determine if it is relevant, if it actually measures what was intended, and if its collection was executed in a sufficiently accurate and precise manner for re-use in the new context. Good documentation should include careful notation of all the parameters in which the data were measured, including equipment, conditions, methodology, characterized standards, and experimental context. Multiple sources of a measurement re-enforce the quality of the measurement technique and specific execution, and normalize inherent variability within and across chemical systems. Calibration to well-characterized standards also maximizes the technical quality of a measurement. The use of controls within an experiment or comparison of results to standard reference data establishes the value of the measurement that is distinct to a sample and of interest for further analysis. For example, the use of standard reference data to identify values related to specific structural characteristics of compounds is relevant to spectra searching, for example.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concerns itself with supporting robust chemical and physical data evaluation and addresses standards across four stages: data collection, basic evaluation, relational analysis, and modeling. 2   How data is collected, documented and stored can impact later accessibility to that data. Basic evaluation questions generally focus on the reproducibility of the data using the same collection methods. Relational analysis is concerned with consistency of the data at hand with other data that describe the material, such as related properties or independent reports of a particular property. Modeling calculations can indicate the predictability of the data as an indicator for this property under the conditions at hand. In practice, processes for assessing and assuring quality of data are especially well developed in materials research and production. Depending on your need when looking at published data, you might require quality indicators ranging from general specifications for a class of material to certified standards of specific compounds. In active research, you might find yourself working with commercial data with specifications provided by the manufacturer, or with preliminary data from collaborating projects.

NIST provides a decision tree to classify property data and determine appropriateness in the context of purpose and use. This protocol is freely available as a simple interactive assessment tool originally developed for the NIST Ceramic WebBook and is a reasonable check-list when working with any published data where quality and provenance is a consideration. 3   Indicative questions for literature and data evaluation include:

Is the source journal peer reviewed?

Are the experimental methods adequately described to be repeatable?

Are any compounds characterized well enough to identify?

Are the results consistent with other indications in the published literature?

Does the explanation build on previously published research?

Do the authors address alternate explanations of the data with further experiments?

As with the scientific research process in general, the provenance of the resulting observations and explanations is important when considering whether the information is of sufficient quality. If little is known concerning the who, what, why, where, when, and how aspects of a research project, it could be considered of indeterminate quality and therefore unacceptable for reference. Referencing the original source of the data, as well as any available provenance, lets the reader make a judgment about the quality and applicability of these data.

Data management is of increasing interest to research-granting agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), which as of 2011 requires all granted projects to include a data management plan. In 2009, an Interagency Working Group on Digital Data developed recommendations for managing data, including some general components to consider for a management plan: “provide for the full digital data life cycle and…describe, as applicable, the types of digital data to be produced; the standards to be used; provisions and conditions for access; requirements for protection of appropriate privacy, confidentiality, security, or intellectual property rights; and provisions for long-term preservation”. 4   More or less specific guidelines are being developed by the various US funding agencies; the NSF is primarily leaving this to be determined at the level of peer-review and program management to reflect best practices for disciplines and other “communities of interest”. 5   The provenance documentation practices discussed above should be rigorous enough to cover most data management plan requirements.

Ultimately, the purpose of scientific research is to contribute to the greater scientific knowledge base in a useful way and lead to applications for society. The ideas and efforts towards this process are considered property of an intellectual nature and are governed through their documentation. The legal framework of intellectual property is to translate the association of scientists with novel ideas and processes into terms that can serve in the practicable everyday world of business, including documentation for provenance and remuneration. In legal terms, intellectual property is about ownership and the potential benefits therein. It was designed by Congress to address Article 1 of the United States Constitution: “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Tımes to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”. 6  

Novelty is a core consideration in supporting scientists’ and companies’ rights to own an idea or a process. The definition of novelty in most jurisdictions is delineated by first public disclosure: anywhere, in any venue, for any purpose. Because of the high potential for value, most publishers in the field of chemistry will not accept work that has been extensively disclosed in a public venue. Patent applicability can hinge on the date and nature of disclosure and becomes especially critical when coordinating rights globally. Ideally, the first public appearance of an idea that is well enough researched to enter the scientific record should be well documented, most often in a published article or patent application. These forms of communication are readily citable, with fairly rigorous presentation of content. However, the first public disclosure of one's research may often be much less rigorous, such as a presentation at a conference. As a result, chemists need to be mindful of future plans to publish in journals or file patent applications as they prepare their presentations.

Scientific research, particularly chemical research, is expensive. Public and private monies earmarked for basic research are available competitively. The chemical industry is interested in productive chemical technologies to make a return on the investment of development. Publications, including patents, are professional scientists’ and chemical companies’ key to sustainable funding and growth through claim to ownership. Most scientific publications are considered under one of two flavors of intellectual property, copyright, or patenting.

1.2.3.1 Copyright

In its legal form, copyright is at least two levels removed from the everyday world of scientific research. It does not relate to experimental design, nor does it contribute to the process of good writing. For most authors, it only seems to come into play when one is trying to publish, and then it often appears as a barrier. Why would a chemist want to have anything to do with copyright or even think about it? It comes down to basic issues surrounding the sharing of creative work with others and, in turn, re-using their work. Your greatness as a scientist lies in your ideas, but these remain in your head and might as well be mist unless you express them in a form that resonates with those whose attention you want. Once your audience takes notice, it will be of the idea, and, in the excitement, you want to be remembered as its originator. Copyright law provides a recognition stamp for a piece of work that captures an idea and governs the ways in which these ideas may be re-used by other scientists.

Copyright protects the expression of any creative act such as music, art, journalism, fiction writing, and many other endeavors where people may want to seek compensation and/or credit for their work. The author originally owns the rights to his or her work, meaning that, for the work to be “copyrighted”, he or she does not need to do anything more formal than capture it in a tangible medium (including online). However, as a legal tool, copyright must be able to stand up in court if the rights of ownership are in dispute. Every researcher hopes their work will be of sufficient interest in his or her discipline that it will be discovered and read by other researchers, granting agencies, and chemical businesses. The potential value of a paper is tied up in where it is exposed and what can then be done with the content, activities overseen by copyright. As the initial copyright owner, the author needs to consider how best to manage the exposure and re-use of the work to meet his or her personal and professional needs.

Copyright is automatically assigned to an idea “the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device”; 7   the rights and opportunities thereby granted are up to the owner to manage and stipulate to the public world. Currently, one of the primary roles of scientific publishers is to formally establish the first public disclosure of a work that invokes those rights, and reputable publishing houses are knowledgeable in both the scientific discipline and the ways of copyright. Publishers also provide additional value by coordinating with the vast network of publishing peers in a discipline to review the quality of the contribution and by placing the work among others of good quality in reputable journals, thus increasing the collective potential to be noticed by the right people. To manage and guarantee all of these services, publishers want a specified relationship with copyright that oversees the legal status of all these activities. In exchange for publishing your article, most scientific publishers will require transfer of your copyright: in effect, transfer of ownership of the work. As the original copyright owner, you always have the option to self-publish if you are prepared to manage your rights, the evidence of first disclosure and any further development and if you believe your work is strong enough to stand on its own.

For the vast majority of scientific articles published in traditional journals, once a manuscript is accepted for publication, it is likely that the authors will be asked to sign an agreement or contract that includes language regarding the copyright of the work. Many contracts require the author to transfer copyright to the publisher, meaning that they will then own all the rights to the article. To do anything further with the article, authors and readers alike will need to seek permission from the publisher as the new rights holder. This includes posting copies of the article on a website, sharing it with colleagues, and using figures in presentations or classes, even if the author is the one teaching them. It also includes reusing any of the content subsequently in a thesis or dissertation. Given the original intention of copyright to support the creativity of the original author and the rather dire impact of cutting you off from your work by transferring all such rights, many publishers will return several rights under the same contract, generally giving permission for the author to share copies with individual colleagues and re-use figures in presentations, classes and dissertations. Because the publisher continues to be the copyright owner, they will usually ask you to provide a citation or a copyright notice in the new venue for any part of your article that you re-use. The American Chemical Society presents FAQs and other learning materials on copyright for publishing authors. 8  

It is always an option to seek permission to do anything that is not specified in a contract, and most scientific publishers will grant this for non-profit oriented uses, especially by the original authors. To use other people's work, you will also need to seek permission from the copyright owner. It is not usually difficult to gain permission for common types of re-use, such as reproducing figures or quoting a brief section of text, many publishers now have automatic permissions systems, such as the RightsLink service used by the Publications Division of the American Chemical Society ( http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/permissions.html ) and other major publishers, which can be used to grant permission for certain pre-determined uses. It is important to note that the requirements for re-use will differ from publisher to publisher, so it is important to follow the form through to the end. Individual scientists in academic institutions making copies of articles (print or digital) for their own general reading purposes usually do not need to seek direct permission from copyright owners to keep these copies. This type of use is provisioned in the Copyright Act as “fair use”. The Fair Use provision addresses a number of types of re-use commonly associated with academic, educational and other non-profit endeavors, such as limited and restricted copies for individual research and teaching. The general understanding is that the use will be small scale and not translate to commercial potential that is still protected for the owner. For more information on acceptable fair use, see The Factsheet on Fair Use, 9   the Circular 21 from the U.S. Copyright Office, 10   or consult a legal authority.

1.2.3.2 Managing Rights in the Digital Environment

Rights associated with intellectual property are not defined relative to format or genre. However, in the digital environment, the scope of the playing field is changed. There is much broader access potential and a much richer technical environment for re-use and re-purposing of content, such as in data-driven research. Simultaneously, the global political and economic environment has encouraged increased participation in scientific research and the chemical enterprise. There are vastly more scientific manuscripts produced than the expanding journal options can absorb, and the peer-review system is swamped. There is a rapidly increasing readership and increasing pressure to publish manuscripts directly online to increase speed and availability. Emerging data-driven approaches to research and development demand greater technical treatment and access to content.

Players on the field have responded to these drivers accordingly by intensifying their approaches with overall compounding effects on the flow of information. Higher potential for global-reaching commercial value coupled with perceived higher competitive threat spurs content owners to tighten rights management measures. In the absence of acceptable standard practice, such measures have tapped into other legal tools such as contract law, and technically based restrictions on access and use, currently enforced through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). Typically, these restrictions limit use far more than with analog information sources. The most visible restriction to researchers is the amount that can be downloaded from various information sources, including database result sets, journal articles, and book chapters. Printing, saving, filing in reference management tools, or forwarding to colleagues may all be restricted or disallowed altogether.

There are other subtler, but no less critical impacts on long-term access and use as specifications of ownership and hosting of the scholarly literature are shifting. Most electronic scholarly journal content is made available to users through license rather than sale as print subscriptions had been. Libraries have negotiated new terms for access in perpetuity to fulfill their mission to make sure that articles are available in the long term. Since publishers remain the content owners, they, rather than libraries, are now also responsible for archiving. Third-party services are emerging to support the ongoing technical integrity of electronic information.

The online environment has increased the potential for the sharing of work; however, it is still important to the integrity of a work to manage the rights of re-use and provenance even if the content is openly available for the initial use of reading. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization developing a new approach to managing and communicating terms of copyright of work in the digital space. The underlying principle is that the work will be openly available for public dissemination and use with a variety of conditions specified by the owners. Several licenses are available with various combinations of specifications for attribution, sharing and commercial purposes. Creative Commons licensing is based on copyright and provides the legal code to uphold it. Additionally the licenses include versions of the terms expressed for owners and users not legally trained and also in machine-readable form to communicate and functionally enable rights and permissions in the digital context; see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ for more information. As the global legal climate surrounding intellectual property establishes itself in the digital environment, content authors, owners, and users juggle a complicated information landscape.

1.2.3.3 Ethics

Authors have certain ethical obligations to the scientific enterprise. Publishing contracts will often include requirements that the work submitted presents original research, an accurate account of the research performed, and an objective discussion of its significance. They further stipulate that all coauthors must be aware of the submission, that the authors submit their work to only one journal at a time, and that they disclose the submission history of the manuscript. 11   Original work should not plagiarize text or figures from other published works, even if prepared by the same authors. The tendency towards self-plagiarism is particularly problematic as researchers build on their own previous work, but each newly published work should have enough novelty to stand as a separate and distinct contribution. Connections to previous work, by the authors or others, should be fully attributed and referenced. Permissions for more extensive use of previous content, such as figures in a review article should be sought from the copyright owner, as discussed above. Such practices constitute a code of conduct and personal responsibility that is core to the definition and ongoing integrity of chemistry research. For further reading on best practices for scientists, see “On Being a Scientist”, freely available from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. 12  

1.2.3.4 Patenting

Patenting is another approach to intellectual property that focuses on the design of technology, human-invented approaches to accomplishing a specified task. This type of intellectual protection involves a different form of documentation, and the resulting patent literature constitutes the primary contribution of the chemical industry. Rights owners are trading public disclosure of their approach for a limited period of exclusivity to develop any commercial potential. Patents allow the public to benefit in the longer term through healthy competition and additional development, while still supporting the pursuit of commercial viability by the originator. Otherwise, owners of commercial processes might keep successful technologies secret indefinitely. A granted patent supports this right for the first party to file, even if others come up with similar ideas independently, as long as the invention is novel. The United States also requires that the invention have utility and offer a non-obvious change to existing technology. Assignees have twenty years to develop and market the technology without competition should they pursue it.

The chemical syntheses and refinement processes developed in industry are patentable, which makes the window of exclusivity a highly valuable right in the commercial sector. As a result, patents are carefully construed to cover a broad a range of potential approaches within each technology to give companies flexibility and multiple stepping-stones to pursue. Technologies developed within the scope of academic research are also patentable, and universities will often contract with commercial partners to scale and market promising technologies. A few technologies out of millions of patents prove to be of high market value, and the owning companies will fiercely defend their exclusive advantage. While development rights are exclusive, the disclosed design is public information, and, although the patent is written in such a way as to obfuscate the critical pieces as much as possible, it can still be very useful for indicating the direction of proprietary research in a given area, as well as providing other important chemical information, such as characterization properties. As a result, patents are a rich body of chemical literature publically available to every research chemist and worthy of serious consideration; approaches to using patent literature are more fully discussed in a later chapter of this book. For further reading on patenting relevant to chemistry, see the handbook “What Every Chemist Should Know About Patents”, available from the American Chemical Society. 13  

1.2.4.1 Primary Literature

The first time an observation or idea appears in a public medium constitutes first disclosure and is categorized as primary literature. This is the important point for discovery and the critical point at which an idea has enough scientific potential behind it to become part of the development of a scientific discipline: “if your research does not generate papers, it might just as well not have been done”. 14   The primary literature represents the state of a research area and will supply you with information on methods and protocols. In chemistry, many primary publications appear in the form of research articles, clustered in journals ranging from general or multidisciplinary to specialized by sub-discipline, methodology, or nationality. Patents, conference papers, and technical reports also constitute a significant portion of the primary literature globally across the chemistry sub-disciplines. The authors, editors, and reviewers of the various primary resources have reviewed the information and deemed it publishable, but it remains to the researcher to locate it and decide if it is relevant to his or her own work.

1.2.4.2 Secondary Literature

Over one million primary publications are indexed by the Chemical Abstracts Service each year in chemistry and its related fields. 15   It is not possible to follow the developments or even find relevant information in any one area without additional organizational tools. Publications that parse, abstract, index, or otherwise break down and group the information and ideas appearing in the primary literature are categorized as secondary literature. There are two general types of secondary literature, depending on the content and purpose. Abstracting and indexing services facilitate research of ideas by organizing the bibliographic information of the primary literature. These tools tend to be large-scale resources, covering a broad range of primary sources to facilitate multidisciplinary and comprehensive research. Databases extract and aggregate specific information from the primary literature to create high-value collections of experimental, analytical, or preparative information. These collections tend to be fairly specialized by type of information or research methodology.

Opportunities for searching in an area of interest simultaneously across multiple information sources and types are becoming more prominent in the web-enabled, digital information environment. Chemical Abstracts Service is one of the most prominent secondary literature providers, specializing in thorough coverage and indexing of the chemistry literature through a variety of systems, including SciFinder and STN (Science & Technology Network). SciFinder links different types of bibliographic, characterization, and preparative information from within the primary literature to enhance the research process from idea to experimental design. Successful use of the secondary literature tools will contribute to your knowledge of a research area. Developers of these tools carefully manage the inclusion and organization of primary literature sources based on scope and perceived quality, but no additional value-based judgment is offered beyond this. The intellectual process of identifying what specific articles and information is relevant information remains to the researcher.

1.2.4.3 Tertiary Literature

Even with the vast number of primary publications in the chemistry-related disciplines and the wide variety of secondary tools available to navigate them, a scientist may still seek additional input to ascertain the gestalt of the research in an area before trying to search it directly. Such scenarios could include a scientist pushing into an unfamiliar research area, a lab group changing its approach to an experimental methodology, or a chemistry graduate student learning to practice research. There are several types of literature in chemistry designed to give an overview of a research area, methodology or practice, these resources are referred to as tertiary literature. Review articles and chapter-books give an overview of a research field at a given time. They are written by experts in the field, long-time practicing scientists, and can cover the development of the primary theories, branches into other fields, applications in industry, primary educational models, future directions with high research potential, and even research lines that didn’t work out. Treatises and handbooks meticulously review the developments of specific research methodologies or experimental best practices in various areas of chemistry, such as organic synthesis. Graduate-level texts, encyclopedias and other primers, such as this book, are another type of tertiary literature designed to introduce an inexperienced researcher to a particular field. Tertiary literature sources offer expert value-based judgments of the published literature and assessment of data in the research area under consideration. It is important to keep in mind that these sources are out of date as soon as they are written in terms of the state of the science in any given area; they are a great starting point to a new area of research but not a robust finishing point for preparing your own experiments and publications.

Each published article has potential in the scientific enterprise, waiting to be found and read by another scientist who sees its potential and can build on it. A key aspect of this path to successful contribution is how other scientists who would be interested in the content of an article happen upon it. An early part of the discovery process for many researchers is the groupings of articles that make up issues of journals that are read regularly. There are many other points of connectivity; the units of the primary literature and the research experiments, observations and conclusions that they represent do not exist in isolation within their host journals. Research articles and patents build on previous reportings, and, in turn, influence those who subsequently read them; the scientific ideas in each article are linked to other published articles. There are many different ways that individual scientists approach their literature practice and process of finding new articles of relevance to their current research projects. However, they are all based on some kind of link from one article to another, one scientist to another, or one idea to another, with each subsequent link related to the former in some way.

For a specific research project, an idea may start with one article read by a scientist. The scientist may then read some of the article's references for better background, then find papers that cite the starting article to see how others have built on it, then examine articles that cite the same references as the original article to see how others have built upon the earlier research, and so on. Much like a pearl that builds up in layers upon the initial stimulation of a grain of sand, this technique of building up a cadre of articles and research awareness through following links is referred to as “pearl growing”, or “the Iterative Approach to literature searching.” 16   Common link paths highlighted by the discovery services in the secondary literature include journals, publishers, authors, institutions, sub-discipline, methodology, type of application, compounds, and physical properties, as well as both references and citations. It is the prerogative of the researcher to navigate the various paths to find the best literature for their particular purpose. The networked online environment is having a profound impact on the ability of researchers to move along these links to aid discovery of information and build knowledge bases. The majority of chemical information resources are available online. As more standards emerge and develop for encoding text and other information to appear on the Web, more links are being activated between common information elements across resources that go well beyond the traditional journal, author, and references.

Chemical information is in a unique position in terms of development potential in the online environment, influenced by a variety of factors that complicate the realization of this potential. The chemistry field is actually one of the earlier pioneers of online representation of information, with machine-readable encoding systems for chemical compounds dating back to the line notation systems of the late 1940s. Chemical information is also exceedingly complex and nuanced in what it represents; structural characterization of compounds, chemical and physical properties of compounds, preparation and purification methodologies, and analytical techniques are all considered by chemical scientists in their research. This intensity around information has been accompanied by elaborate representation schema for various aspects of the information since the heyday of alchemy. In 1919, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry was formed to more systematically consider and review chemical information representation and apply standardization in some critical areas internationally, including chemical compound notation for both human and machine reading purposes. 17   The latest example of efforts in this area is the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier (InChI), which provides interoperable chemical structure encoding between different publishers and chemical information systems. 18  

Robust and standardized machine-readable encoding of information has also enabled the emergence of new and powerful data-driven approaches to research. Informatics, as this type of science is generally called, is touching on many fields, including chemistry. Research processes that were previously managed by the researcher, such as data collection and management, are increasingly automated, and ultimately the computer can activate a variety of links among and between data sets to indicate patterns of potential interest. It is still up to the human researcher to make some determination of the value and to pursue further research of any of these patterns.

As these computer systems become increasingly sophisticated, they are beginning to perform more of the valuation themselves, “learning” from patterns of previously assigned values and performing self-assessment based on error rate analysis. This area, in which the computer applies value-based analysis to research input, is referred to as semantic processing. This approach is not only being applied to numeric or other non-textual research data, but to the linking patterns used by scientists when searching the literature, as well as the early stages of analysis of text in the primary literature and, by extension, a kind of analysis of the intellectual contribution of individual scientists. This sounds very much like the literature research process for individual humans that we have been discussing throughout this chapter. What could be lost with the automation of more processes formerly performed by educated chemists, and what more could those researchers do beyond what is possible now with more time freed from automated tasks? As more data, including the direct intellectual contribution of researchers, is presented online and linked to other information, pattern recognition and evaluation is enabled and the impact of these considerations will become increasing prominent. There certainly are implications regarding productivity value and re-use of material considered to be intellectual property and therefore protected by copyright or patent law. There may also be implications for what is considered by the chemistry community to be acceptable standards of practice when balancing machine and human analysis and valuation to further the research enterprise.

Amidst the complexities and complications of the chemical information landscape, libraries focus primarily on enabling use of scholarly materials. An ideal goal for searching the literature for researchers and information providers to strive for might be 90% unassisted use 24/7 anywhere, complemented by detailed support the remaining 10% of the time. Information providers are in the business to consider highly dis-intermediated experiences for researchers to enable the most efficient approach within a researcher's individual process and point of need. Both content and access are key components of a dis-intermediated research process, through combination of clearly defined scope of content, expert curation, value added content analysis, and automated organizational structure. Expert curation is the highest value added to most chemistry resources, involving scientists and other field experts to determine what content to include and highlight, what links to include and highlight and how to put these together to clarify the opportunities and potential indicators for researchers.

Researchers’ needs not covered by 90% solutions require expert assistance. These needs should not be underestimated; they could translate to “aha moments” for researchers, critical learning opportunities for students, or indicators of emerging areas of chemistry research and potential in the information landscape. The questions you are asking may be cutting edge and unique enough to not be represented in standard ways in searching tools. In a well-meant effort to maximize the opportunities of the online environment, database and information providers often try to make tools more intuitive. In reality, expert search functions are often diminished, resulting in more difficulty finding relevant information. If you have spent over 20minutes in fruitless searching, this is not good use of your time; ask for help. There are experts who search for information for a living; they often have access to better tools and have invested time to develop better work-arounds; they can save you a lot of time.

This volume is authored by chemistry-focused librarians across the United States and Canada who perceive a need to more broadly support graduate students and researchers in chemistry with their literature use. In addition to expertise in the literature landscape of chemistry, librarians have access to networks of other experts, and participate in a variety of services and activities to further broaden both the support and expertise they can provide. They curate specialized finding tools in chemistry, such as properties finders and virtual shelf browsers; offer training, guides, and feedback opportunities with specific resources and search techniques; and actively participate in scientific societies and liaise with publishers and other professional development programs for chemists. All of this expertise is only as good as it is useful for chemists; we welcome the opportunity to assist your literature research in a variety of ways. Another useful volume addressing the broad issues of publication is the ACS Style Guide, 3 rd edition published in 2006 by the American Chemical Society. 19  

The balance of supporting researchers in a robust searching process through independent options coupled with specified assistance represents a moving target as the research landscape continuously changes. Iterative development is critical for information providers to aim for a successful highly dis-intermediated environment. Follow-up analysis of assisted experiences is needed to assess what is indicated about gaps in dis-intermediated solutions or potential new service areas. Such are the requirements of robust information systems and services and chemistry information providers tend to invest significant resources into ensuring robust content, organization, support, and other added value. As the digital markup of chemical information improves, more direct engagement is possible with non-tactile literature and libraries transition support of print-based research processes to online-based research processes.

A literature search is a significant part of the overall research process. It is up to you to leverage the structure of the literature, discovery tools, pearl growing, valuation, and good tracking skills to tap its potential. If you do not take the time and care to plan your process up front, you will quickly be swamped by the vastness of the literature, and likely miss key findings or painstakingly recreate experimental methods previously published. Please remember Frank Westheimer's aphorism, “Why spend a day in the library when you can learn the same thing by working in the laboratory for a month?” 20  

When searching through the literature, the information you have in hand – previous research, active authors, chemical structural information – can serve as starting and linking points. Since your search of the literature may be for background information, a comprehensive sweep of previously characterized compounds of interest, a specific set of physical properties, or a particular synthesis route, what you already know will help identify which information resources are best suited to help. The remainder of this book provides some description of the more commonly used chemical information resources designed to help the researcher determine which to use and how best to get started for various needs.

Given the complex nature of chemical compound characterization and the breadth of research fields that touch on chemistry, some types of chemical information are more complicated and require advanced searching methodologies. Good starting places and best practices for more specialized searching are detailed in the later chapters of this book. This is not a comprehensive sweep of all potential approaches to searching in chemistry, so as you specialize in your area of research, becoming thoroughly competent in the relevant advanced searching methodologies will be critical for a robust research program.

Reviewing and assessing the results requires an understanding of what additional relevant information may be available, evaluating new search leads, such as other associated compounds, and recognizing better index terms. Reviewing specific result records will indicate what can be expected in that information resource, and gives a sense of how structural, reaction or property information is encoded. To quote from the conclusion of the physical properties chapter: “important skills for a searcher are persistence, creativity, and a sense of what avenues are most likely to be successful and which ones are unproductive… not unlike the qualities of a good detective”. 21  

So what are some practical tips for mastering your work with the chemistry literature? At Cornell University, we have created a guide titled, “7 Ways to Be a More Efficient Chemist” that boils down several key activities you can set up right away to help yourself in the literature aspects of your research ( http://guides.library.cornell.edu/7chemistry , original guide by Kirsten Hensley, 2008). The guide points to specific resources at Cornell University, but the principles apply anywhere for any chemist at any stage of research.

1.3.2.1 Streamline Your Connections to the Literature Resources You Use Regularly So You Can Access Them Anywhere, Any Time, and from Any Device

Most research libraries have a proxy system in place for connecting to resources when you are off-campus; many also provide bookmarklets or apps for re-loading web pages with your institutional authentication so you can log in from anywhere. Set up bookmarks in your web browser of choice, or use a webroot or some other system with your most frequently and regularly used resources, using the links provided by your library, which should include the proxy authentication. Apps covering a variety of literature resources and searching options are also increasingly available if working on smaller mobile devices fits into your work style.

1.3.2.2 Organize the Hundreds of Articles and References You Collect in Your Literature Research

Many citation management programs are available with various organizational features and costs ranging from free to reasonable educational discounts. You can group references by topic, project or specific question you are researching. Most will import PDF files and some will pull out the bibliographic information for you so you can organize the papers. Some allow for collaborative work. Most literature databases will export references in formats directly importable to these programs; some programs can even be used to search other content or linked into directly.

1.3.2.3 Regularly Monitor the Contents of the Top Journals in Chemistry and Your Specific Sub-discipline Once You Start Actively Researching

Most scientific journals provide email or RSS feed alerts of issue content for free. JournalTOCs ( http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/ ) collects thousands of feed links to scholarly journal tables of contents, and you can create groups of journals to monitor from this free service. If you are not familiar with the journals in a particular sub-discipline, you can get an initial list to start by exploring the Journal Citation Reports ISI Impact Factor rankings if your institution subscribes to this assessment tool. These rankings are based on numbers of citations to a journal relative to the number of articles published within a fixed time-frame, roughly indicating how much impact the research published therein is having on informing further research in a given area. Review journals tend to show the highest impact with this measure, as they are broad in scope and can be particularly helpful for reference when new to a research area.

1.3.2.4 Set up Alerts in the Literature Databases to Monitor New Research by Topic

This technique will cut across journals and other literature sources and allow you to zero in on specific methodologies or compounds of interest on a more specific level. Most databases, such as SciFinder, Web of Science, MEDLINE, etc. , offer alerts based on your searches of interest. You can also save searches and come back to them to build up a critical mass of literature in an area to export to your citation management program.

1.3.2.5 Read Books and Review Articles for Background Material

You will be expected to build up knowledge of various areas pretty quickly as you begin more research. These could be the state of current research areas, chemical reaction or other experimental methodologies, or potential for application. Treatises and review journals as mentioned above are available that cover all these types of information, as well as periodic review articles in primary journals for more specific or timely topics.

1.3.2.6 Be Familiar with the Options for Acquiring the Full Text of Articles through Your Library or Information Center

Most research libraries have fairly robust collections of electronic journals that will be directly available to you or will provide document delivery for needed articles. Finding these links among thousands of others will vary by local institution. No research library has direct access to all published literature, digital or hard copy, but there are a number of collaborative systems that research libraries use to make content available among institutions. Most libraries participate in some kind of inter-library loaning system for hard copy, photocopies, and increasingly for electronic content as well. Systems for article sharing tend to be national or international, many regional approaches also exist for books, including service from joint storage facilities.

1.3.2.7 Ask for Help from Librarians with All of the above Tasks and More

If we don’t know specifically how, we will find the right assistance for you. This is the top priority and core responsibility of the public services librarians in any library. Most research libraries will have librarians who specialize their service in key disciplines, including chemistry, which tends to be a literature-heavy discipline.

1.3.2.8 Bonus: Be Aware of Specialized Electronic Reference Resources for Reaction Specifications, Physical Properties, and other Scientific Data

More and more of the data supporting chemistry research are becoming available in online venues. The traditional reference collections in research libraries supporting chemistry tend to be expansive and well used but cumbersome and probably not as well discovered as they could be for supporting experimental and technical work. As these resources become more available online and libraries are able to support them, it can have a positive impact on your workflow.

Overall, remember that the library is intended to support your literature research, in accessing content, improving your searches, and helping you become a more efficient and better prepared chemist.

• Campaigning and outreach
• News and events
• Awards and funding
• Privacy policy
• Journals and databases
• Locations and contacts
• Membership and professional community
• Teaching and learning
• Help and legal
• Cookie policy
• Terms and conditions
• Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Registered charity number: 207890
• © Royal Society of Chemistry 2023

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

The Online Books Page

presents serial archive listings for

Chemical Abstracts

Chemical Abstracts was a periodical indexing and abstracting chemistry articles, patents, and other reports, associated with the American Chemical Society.

Publication History

Chemical Abstracts began in 1907. The first copyright-renewed issue is January 10, 1940 (v. 34 no. 1). We know of no actively copyright-renewed contributions. ( More details ) It was published as a journal until 2009. Since 2010, abstracts have been added and maintained by the Chemical Abstracts Service in its SciFinder database.

Persistent Archives of Complete Issues

• 1907-1928: HathiTrust has volumes 1-22 freely readable online. Some later volumes are searchable but not readable here.
• 1927: The Internet Archive has volume 21, numbers 21-23 , covering November and December 1924, and with indexes for the year.
• 1929: The Internet Archive has volume 23, number 23 , the author index for 1929.
• 1936: The Internet Archive has volume 30, numbers 1-6 , covering January-March 1936.

Official Site / Current Material

• The Chemical Abstracts Service website has more information about its offerings, and gives subscription-based access to its resources.

This is a record of a major serial archive . This page is maintained for The Online Books Page . (See our criteria for listing serial archives .) This page has no affiliation with the serial or its publisher.

Help with reading books -- Report a bad link -- Suggest a new listing

Home -- Search -- New Listings -- Authors -- Titles -- Subjects -- Serials

Books -- News -- Features -- Archives -- The Inside Story

Edited by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu) OBP copyrights and licenses .

• CSU Stanislaus
• Research Guides

Chemical Abstracts / SciFinder-n

Electronic resources librarian.

Accesing SciFinder for the First-Time: Creating Your Account

• Register for Chemical Abstracts SciFinder-n You need to create a personal account before using CAS SciFinder-n. All current Stan State students, faculty and staff can use the University Library's CAS SciFinder-n registration link to create a personal account.

Returning Users: Login to SciFinder

• Chemical Abstracts Scifinder-n Login Index to research published in chemistry journals and chemical reference databases. You can go straight to the login if you have previously registered.

More Information About Your SciFinder Account

Unlike most other Stanislaus State Library databases, CAS SciFinder-n  requires your to create your own personal account with a username and password you choose.  As long as you use the Stan State CAS SciFinder-n links (included on this guide), you should be able to register for a free account without any charge to you.  Once you have registered, you can return and go straight to the CAS SciFinder-n Login link, but you will need to enter the username and password you created for your own personal CAS SciFinder-n account.

About SciFinder-n

SciFinder-n is the major chemical and literature information service produced by the American Chemical Society's' Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). It is is a curated database of chemical and bibliographic information from chemistry and related literature.  Use SciFinder-n for literature searches and to find background information on chemicals, drugs, and substances.

Key components and sources for SciFinder-n data include:

• CAS REGISTRY ® (information on chemical substances)
• CAS References ™ (literature from journals, etc.)
• CAS collection of reactions

For more information, see:

• Gabrielsen, S. W. (2018) SciFinder.   Journal of the Medical Library Association, 106 , 588-590 https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2018.515
• Last Updated: Feb 21, 2024 2:33 PM
• URL: https://library.csustan.edu/scifinderinformation

Learn more about how the Cal Poly Humboldt Library can help support your research and learning needs.

Stay updated at Campus Ready .

• Cal Poly Humboldt Library
• Research Guides

Chemistry Research Guide

• CAS Registry Numbers
• Finding Books
• Finding Articles
• SCIFinder Quick Guide
• Web Resources
• ACS Style Guide Citing Sources

What is the CAS Registry Number? Why do I need it?

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has a  registry system  for all completely identified chemical compounds or substances. There are over 144 million chemical substances & sequences currently registered and 12,000 new substances are added every day!! Each individual chemical substance is assigned a CAS Registry Number which may be thought of as that substance's "Social Security number."  (For more information, see  What does a CAS Registry Number look like? )

The rules of chemical nomenclature frequently change and each chemical substance is liable to have several names: i.e. trade or brand name(s); generic or common name(s); trivial or semisystematic name(s); and systematic or IUPAC name(s). For example, Tylenol is a brand name for acetaminophen which is itself a trivial name. The systematic name for this analgesic compound is Acetamide, N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-. Another systematic name for this same compound is 4'-Hydroxyacetanilide. There is just one  CAS registry number which is  103-90-2 . Even if other names are created for this compound, the registry number will remain unchanged. There is no structural significance to the registry number - it is simply an identifier.

The most efficient and complete way to search for chemical substances in the  Chemical Abstracts Online  database is to use the CAS registry number(s).   A registry number may be searched as if it were a word, i.e.,  s 103-90-2  will search for information on Tylenol.  See  Using Native Commands to Search Chemical Abstracts Online  for more information on searching techniques.

CAS registry numbers are found in several print and electronic sources. These sources should be consulted before you develop your search strategy for  Chemical Abstracts Online . It is a good idea to verify registry numbers found in sources not published by CAS. This is because the registry number could represent some other form of the compound (e.g., stereoisomer, salt, or an incompletely defined form) than the one you want. To verify the registry number, select the Registry File by typing   file reg   into the search box in  Chemical Abstracts Online .  Enter  s ###-##-#  into the search box (###-##-# is the registry number - fill in the digits for the compound of interest). Check the record retrieved and make certain it is the desired substance before you use it in searching  Chemical Abstracts Online .

If the substance retrieved is not the one you want or you cannot find the CAS registry number in any of the sources listed below, you may then search the Registry File by substance name or molecular formula. A structure search may be attempted if all else fails but this type of search is expensive and can be complicated.

General sources containing CAS Registry Numbers

• Chemical Abstracts Index Guide . Columbus, OH: Chemical Abstracts Service, 1967-96 (ref QD 1 A51) There is an  Index Guide  for each collective 5-year period of  Chemical Abstracts . The  Index Guide  is published every 18 months and cumulated at the end of each collective period.  This is the "authority" list for both the print and online versions of  Chemical Abstracts .
• CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics . Cleveland, OH: CRC Press, published annually (ref QD 65 H3) *Older editions are in circulating collection (QD 65 H3).
• Gardner, William,  Gardner's Chemical Synonyms and Trade Names , 11th ed. Brookfield, VT: Gower, 1999 (ref TP 9 G286 1999)
• Hawley, Gessner Goodrich, et al,  Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary , 16h ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated,  2016
• Howard, Philip H. & Neal, Michael,  Dictionary of Chemical Names and Synonyms , Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 1992 (ref TP 9 H65 1992)
• Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology , 5th ed. NY: Wiley, 2004-2007, 26 volumes plus supplements.
• Buyer's Guide for Chemicals A directory of suppliers of chemicals and chemical products. More than 295,000 products are searchable by product name. (http://www.buyersguidechem.de)
• ChemExper Chemical Directory You may search this database of "chemicals available in the world" by registry number, molecular formula or by chemical name or synonyms in different languages. (http://www.chemexper.com/)
• ChemSpider Claims to be the "the richest single source of structure-based chemistry information" covering over 25 million compounds from almost 400 sources. You may search by systematic name, synonym, trade name, CAS registry number, etc. and find a wealth of information, including the CAS registry number. (http://www.chemspider.com)
• NIST Chemistry WebBook A gateway to the data collections of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), you can search for data on specific compounds by name, chemical formula, CAS registry number, molecular weight, or selected ion energetics and spectral properties. (http://webbook.nist.gov/)
• WIKIPEDIA (http://wikipedia.org) - "The Free Encyclopedia" has articles on chemical compounds written by and for chemists. Articles usually include CAS registry number and structural diagrams as well as alternate names, identifiers and properties with links to other sources of information.

Chemical catalogs containing CAS Registry Numbers

• Aldrich Chemical Company,  Aldrich Chemistry : Handbook of Fine Chemicals , Milwaukee, WI: Sigma-Aldrich (ref TP 202 A38)
• Sigma Chemical Company,  Biochemicals, Reagents & Kits for Life Science Research , St. Louis, MO: Sigma Chemical Co. (ref TP 202 S54)
• Fisher Scientific You may search the Fisher Scientific chemical catalogs by chemical name, molecular formula, catalog number, or key word. Choose "Advanced Search" to get all of the search options. Contains over 2,400 chemicals and material safety data sheets (MSDS's). (https://www.fishersci.com)
• Spectrum Chemicals & Laboratory Products You may search Spectrum Chemicals by chemical name, keyword, CAS registry number, FEMA number, color index number, and molecular formula. (http://www.spectrumchemical.com/)
• WWW Chemicals Another searchable collection of chemical catalogs which may be searched by chemical name, CAS registry number, field of expertise, molecular formula, etc. (http://www.chem.com/catalogs/)

Inorganic and Organic Compounds containing CAS Registry Numbers

INORGANIC COMPOUNDS

• Dictionary of Inorganic Compounds , 1st ed. NY: Chapman and Hall, 1992 (ref QD 148 D53 1992) 5-volume set and 1st-2nd annual supplements.

ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

• CRC Handbook of Data on Organic Compounds , 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1989 (ref QD 257.7 H36 1989) 10 volume set.
• Dictionary of Organic Compounds , 5th ed. NY: Chapman and Hall, 1982 (ref QD 246 D5 1982) 7 volume set and 1st-10th annual supplements (1982-1992).
• Handbook of Physical Properties of Organic Chemicals ,   Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1997  (ref  QD 257.7 H374 1997

Drugs and Biologically Important Compunds containing CAS Registry Numbers

• Merck Index , Rahway, NJ: Merck & Co., published every 7-8 years  (ref RS 51 M4)  Library has latest three editions.
• PubChem A set of three databases: PubChem Compound, PubChem Substance, and PubChem Bioassay. PubChem provides information on the biological activities of small molecules. Depending on the source of the data, the results can include registry numbers but may not identify them as such.(http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/).

Pesticides containing CAS Registry Numbers

• Briggs, Shirley A.  Basic Guide to Pesticides: their characteristics and hazards,  Washington, DC: Hemisphere, 1992 (ref SB 951 B75 1992)
• Crop Protection Handbook , Willoughby, OH: Meister PubCo, published annually. HSU Library has 2005 edition. (ref S 633 A5)
• Montgomery, John H.  Agrochemicals Desk Reference , 2nd edition.  Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1997 (ref TD 196 A34 M66 1997)
• Worthing, Charles R.  The Pesticide Manual , 9th ed. Surrey, UK: British Crop Protection Council, 1991 (ref SB 951 P434 1991)
• EXTOXNET (Extension Toxicology Network) - A cooperative effort of UC Davis, Oregon State University, Michigan State University, Cornell University, and the University of Idaho - contains over 130 Pesticide Information Profiles on specific pesticides. (http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/ghindex.html)
• National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) NPIC's mission is "to serve as a source of factual, unbiased information on pesticide chemistry, toxicology, and environmental fate." In addition to other information, NPIC has "active ingredient" fact sheets. (http://npic.orst.edu)

Toxic or Hazardous Substances containing CAS Registry Numbers

• Beim, Howard J.   Rapid Guide to Hazardous Air Pollutants .  NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1998 (ref TD 883.1 B37 1998)
• Book of Lists for Regulated Hazardous Substances , 10th ed. Rockville, MD: The Institutes, 2001 (ref TD 1032 B66 2001)
• Bretherick, L.,  Bretherick's Handbook of Reactive Chemical Hazards , 6th ed. Oxford ; Boston : Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999 (ref T 55.3 H3 B73 1999)
• Keith, Lawrence H. & Walker, Mary M.,  Handbook of Air Toxics: sampling, analysis, and properties . Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 1995 (ref TD 890 K4 1995)
• Lewis, Richard J., Sr.,  Hazardous Chemicals Desk Reference,  5th ed. NY: Wiley, 2002  (ref T 55.3 H3 L49 2002)
• Lewis, Richard J., Sr., & Sax, N. Irving,  Sax's Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials , 10th ed. NY: Wiley, 2000 (ref T55.3 H3 L494 2000) 3-volume set
• Mackay, Donald, et al,  Illustrated Handbook of Physical-Chemical Properties and Environmental Fate for Organic Chemicals . Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 1992-1997 (ref TD 196 O73 M32 1992) 5-volume set
• Montgomery, John H. & Welkom, Linda M.,  Groundwater Chemicals Desk Reference , 3rd ed. Chelsea, MI: Lewis Publishers, 2000 (ref TD 426 M66 2000)
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,  NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards . Cincinnati, OH: NIOSH, 1997 (Docs HE 20.7108:C42/997)
• Pohanish, Richard P.,  Wiley Guide to Chemical Incompatibilities , 2nd ed. Hoboken NJ: J. Wiley, 2003  (ref T 55.3 H3 P647 2003)
• Pohanish, Richard P.,  Rapid Guide to Hazardous Chemicals in the Environment . NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1997  (ref RA 1226 P64 1997)
• Pohanish, Richard P.,   Sittig's Handbook of Toxic and Hazardous Chemicals and Carcinogens , 4th ed. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Publications, 2002 (ref RA 1215 .S58 2002) 2-volume set
• Proctor, Nick H.,  Proctor and Hughes' Chemical Hazards of the Workplace , 4th ed., NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1996 (ref RA 1229 P76 1996)
• Sheftel, Victor O.,  Handbook of Toxic Properties of Monomers and Additives . Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 1995  (ref RA 1242 P66 S54 1995)
• Shepard, Thomas H.,  Catalog of Teratogenic Agents , 11th ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004 (ref QM 691 S53 2004)
• Sittig, Marshall,  World-Wide Limits for Toxic and Hazardous Chemicals in Air, Water and Soil . Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Publications, 1994 (ref RA 1229.5 S58 1994)
• Consumer Products Information Database Enter Products, Manufacturers, Chemicals, Product Categories and Product Types
• Material Safety Data Sheets A collection of sites where you can get MSDS's. Most of these sites are searchable by chemical name, manufacturer name, and/or CAS registry number.

Content Attribution

Some of the content of this page was created in another format by Sharon Chadwick, HSU Librarian, retired 06/2013. 

• << Previous: Web Resources
• Next: ACS Style Guide Citing Sources >>

• University of Michigan Library
• Research Guides
• Getting Started
• Online Reference Sources
• Chemical Safety Information
• Citation Management
• Access to Library Resources
• DEIA & Ethics

Selected Databases

Database search.

• Search for a database accessible by U-M faculty, students and staff  
• Canvas module on  Navigating Science Databases  (use tag hsstem)
• Why use Library Databases? ( YouTube video )

Related Guides for Databases

• SciFinder-n by Yulia Sevryugina Last Updated Jun 19, 2023 1684 views this year
• Reaxys: Beilstein/Gmelin/Patent Chemistry by Yulia Sevryugina Last Updated Jan 12, 2021 464 views this year
• ChemBioOffice: Professional illustrations and beyond for chemists and biologists by Yulia Sevryugina Last Updated Sep 21, 2021 506 views this year
• Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection by Karen A. Reiman-Sendi Last Updated Jan 15, 2024 4080 views this year
• THL Database Searching by Mark Chaffee Last Updated Jul 13, 2023 2795 views this year

• ACS Publications

ACS Publishing Center

Author guidelines.

Last updated: December 29, 2023

Scope of the Journal

Manuscript types, submit with fast format, document templates and format, acceptable software, file designations, and tex/latex, cover letter, manuscript text components, supporting information, research data policy, data requirements, language and editing services, preparing graphics, figure and illustration services, prior publication policy, providing potential reviewer names, manuscript transfer, proofs via acs direct correct, publication date and patent dates, asap publication, post-publication policies, sharing your published article.

The Journal of Natural Products invites and publishes papers that make substantial and scholarly contributions to the area of natural products research. Contributions may relate to the chemistry and/or biochemistry of naturally occurring compounds or the biology of living systems from which they are obtained. Specifically, they may be articles that describe secondary metabolites of microorganisms, including antibiotics and mycotoxins; physiologically active compounds from terrestrial and marine plants and animals; biochemical studies, including biosynthesis and microbiological transformations; fermentation and plant tissue culture; the isolation, structure elucidation, and chemical synthesis and semi-synthesis of novel compounds from nature; and the pharmacology of compounds of natural origin. When new compounds are reported, manuscripts describing their biological activity are much preferred. Manuscripts that focus on biological properties of chemically complex extracts, mixtures, or essential oils are outside of the scope of the journal.

Manuscripts may be submitted as Articles, Notes, Reviews, or Perspectives. Authors should indicate in a cover letter accompanying the manuscript which category they intend for their submission.

All manuscripts will be submitted to a review process. Manuscripts will be considered for publication on the understanding that they have not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

Articles . Articles are comprehensive, critical accounts of work in the areas outlined above.

Notes. Notes are abbreviated papers presented in the same general style as Articles. Generally, studies that are narrower in scope than published in Articles are reported as Notes. When only one or two new compounds are reported in a manuscript, these substances must be of significant structural, biogenetic, and/or biological interest. The publication of known compounds will be considered only if they have been demonstrated to possess potentially important bioactivity. Manuscripts solely reporting NMR assignments or X-ray crystallographic data of known compounds will not be considered. For known compounds, authors should submit full experimental details of the isolation and identification data for consideration by the referees but not for publication. Full details of the isolation and identification procedures for known compounds may be made available to the reader as Supporting Information. (See the subsequent section on Supporting Information.)

Authors investigating the chemistry of a single species should aim to publish their results in a single manuscript rather than in a series of manuscripts describing each new compound as it is found. Manuscripts that report fragmentary parts of a larger study will be returned to the authors at the Editors’ discretion.

Reviews . Comprehensive reviews of topics within the scope of the journal and supported by significant literature should be submitted as reviews. Short reviews of recent literature that update a topic are also considered. The information in Reviews should be presented objectively, not limited to the contributions of the authors, and written with the intent of familiarizing the general reader with the broad current state of knowledge of a topic of active interest. The length of reviews should be commensurate with the information available; there are no formal limitations on length. Reviews are considered upon invitation, or after approval of presubmission inquiries outlining a synopsis of the manuscript sent to [email protected] .

Perspectives . Perspectives are personal reviews of subject or a topic in natural products, which should be focused rather than comprehensive. Perspective authors should assess the current status of the selected subject or topic, with an emphasis toward identifying important advances being made or those advances that are needed. Perspective reviews should present a forward-thinking approach in discussing the selected topic to be covered. The Journal of Natural Products Perspective should address the recent literature, including key contributors, aiming primarily to inspire and provide new insights to direct future research efforts. Perspectives authors will be invited by the Editor, or presubmission inquiries outlining a synopsis of the manuscript can be sent to [email protected] . Perspectives should be no more than 9,000 words, including the abstract, main text, and figure captions

While this document will provide basic information on how to prepare and submit the manuscript as well as other critical information about publishing, we also encourage authors to visit the ACS Publishing Center for additional information on everything that is needed to prepare (and review) manuscripts for ACS journals and partner journals, such as

• Mastering the Art of Scientific Publication , which shares editor tips about a variety of topics including making your paper scientifically effective, preparing excellent graphics, and writing cover letters.
• Resources on how to prepare and submit a manuscript to ACS Paragon Plus, ACS Publications’ manuscript submission and peer review environment, including details on selecting the applicable Journal Publishing Agreement .
• Sharing your research with the public through the ACS Publications open access program.
• ACS Reviewer Lab , a free online course covering best practices for peer review and related ethical considerations. 
• ACS Author Lab , a free online course that empowers authors to prepare and submit strong manuscripts, avoiding errors that could lead to delays in the publication process.
• ACS Inclusivity Style Guide , a guide that helps researchers communicate in ways that recognize and respect diversity in all its forms.

Manuscript Preparation

All ACS journals and partner journals have simplified their formatting requirements in favor of a streamlined and standardized format for an initial manuscript submission. Read more about the requirements and the benefits these serves authors and reviewers here .

Manuscripts submitted for initial consideration must adhere to these standards:

• Submissions must be complete with clearly identified standard sections used to report original research, free of annotations or highlights, and include all numbered and labeled components.
• Figures, charts, tables, schemes, and equations should be embedded in the text at the point of relevance. Separate graphics can be supplied later at revision, if necessary.
• When required by a journal's structure or length limitations, manuscript templates should be used.
• References can be provided in any style, but they must be complete, including titles. For information about the required components of different reference types, please refer to the  ACS Style Quick Guide .
• Supporting Information must be submitted as a separate file(s).

The templates facilitate the peer review process by allowing authors to place artwork and tables close to the point where they are discussed within the text. Learn more about document templates here . 

General information on the preparation of manuscripts may also be found in the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication .

See the list of Acceptable Software and appropriate File Designations to be sure your file types are compatible with ACS Paragon Plus. Information for manuscripts generated from TeX/LaTeX is also available.

A cover letter must accompany every manuscript submission. During the submission process, you may type it or paste it into the submission system, or you may attach it as a file.

To assist with the subsequent editorial process, it is preferred that manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Natural Products be prepared in single columns per page, double-spaced, with font size 12. The template is available for on the Information for Authors  page. Use of a template is encouraged but not mandatory. The template facilitates the peer review process by allowing authors to place artwork and tables close to the point where they are discussed within the text.

Manuscripts may be submitted as Articles, Notes, Reviews (by invitation of presubmission inquiry), Perspectives (by invitation or presubmission inquiry), and Editorials (by invitation) (see “Scope and Editorial Policy” document). The manuscript title should appear on a separate page and should be followed by the author names and the institution name and address. The title, author name(s), and affiliations should all appear on their own respective line of text. Place an asterisk after the name of the author to whom enquiries regarding the paper should be directed and include that author’s telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address. Author affiliations should be footnoted using sequential lower-case letters, numbers, or symbols. Subdivisions (e.g., departments) of an institution should be grouped on the same line or lines. In article titles, the words “new” or “novel” (with the latter referring specifically to a compound based on an unprecedented carbon skeleton) should not be included, and the number of new substances obtained should not be specified. The title page and the rest of the manuscript should be typed in font size 12.

The abstract, detailing, in a single paragraph, the problem, experimental approach, major findings, and conclusions, should appear on the second page. It should be double spaced and should not exceed 200 words for Articles and Reviews or 100 words for Notes and Perspectives. Compounds mentioned in the abstract, and given as specific Arabic numerals that are bolded in the manuscript text, should also be accompanied in the abstract by the same bolded numerals. The abstract should be on a separate page and should be provided with the bolded and capitalized heading “ABSTRACT”.

Introduction

The manuscript should include an untitled introductory section stating the purpose of the investigation and relating the manuscript to similar research.

Results and Discussion

The “Results and Discussion” should be presented as a coherent whole section, in which the results are presented concisely. The discussion should interpret the results and relate them to existing knowledge in the field in as clear and brief a fashion as possible. Tables and figures should be designed to maximize the presentation and comprehension of the experimental data. Authors submitting a manuscript as a Note should omit the heading “Results and Discussion.” For Articles of unusual length, subheadings may be included within the “Results and Discussion” section. The major heading “Results and Discussion” should be bolded and capitalized, with the text starting on the line following. Subheadings are indented, followed by a period, and are a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. The text follows on the same line as the subheading.

Bolded structural code numbers should only be used for new compounds and for those known compounds for which new biological data or spectroscopic values are being reported, and should be presented in the main text in ascending numerical order. Authors providing manuscripts focusing on the biological properties of two or fewer known natural products have the option of referring to the compound(s) concerned by name, rather than assigning each a bolded numerical code number. Other known compounds should be referred to in the text by name, wherever necessary. Sugar units in glycosides should not be inferred as D or L based solely on NMR data analysis, but should be determined by supporting experimental work such as measurement of their optical rotations following acid hydrolysis or by the preparation of chiral derivatives and comparison with standards using a chromatographic analytical method. If the aglycone of a glycoside is also a new compound, then it should be isolated and its physical constants and spectroscopic parameters stated. Authors are advised to use correctly the terms “relative and absolute configuration” instead of “relative and absolute stereochemistry”. In, for example, a carbocyclic compound, only a stereogenic carbon or a stereogenic element, such as an axis, possesses configuration. Substituents such as methyl groups are either alpha or beta oriented and are not alpha or beta configured. Care should be taken not to make erroneous configurational conclusions via NMR NOE associations from ring to side-chain protons of, for example, sterols and tetracyclic triterpenoids. The term “spectral” should be avoided in a structure elucidation discussion, when “spectroscopic” or “spectrometric” are meant instead. When describing mass spectrometric details, authors should not refer to the terms “pseudomolecular ion”, “quasimolecular ion”, or “protonated molecular ion" and should refer instead to, e.g., “a sodium adduct ion”, “a protonated molecule”, or a “deprotonated molecule” (see Pure Appl. Chem . 2013 , 85 , 1515–1609).

In manuscripts that present results of biological studies with tumor cell lines or animal-based tumor models, authors should pay special attention to the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NIH) guidelines for cancer drug discovery studies. Compounds that suppress the growth of, or kill, isolated tumor cell lines grown in culture should be referred to as either “cytostatic” or “cytotoxic”, as appropriate. Only compounds that inhibit the growth of tumors in animal-based models should be called “antitumor”. The term “anticancer” should be reserved for compounds that show specific activity in human-based clinical studies (see Suffness, M.; Douros, J. J. Nat . Prod . 1982 , 45 , 1–14). Some flexibility in this system is afforded in the description of compounds that show activity in molecular-targeted antitumor assays. Compounds should be compared against a suitable positive control substance and follow accepted guidelines when represented as “active”. For example, a cytotoxic pure substance when tested against a cancer cell line would exhibit an IC 50 value of <10 μ M (or 4–5 μ g/mL).

Experimental Section

The presentation of specific details about instruments used, sources of specialized chemicals, and related experimental details should be incorporated into the text of the Experimental Section as a paragraph headed General Experimental Procedures. The general order for inclusion should be as follows: melting points; optical rotations; UV spectra; ECD and/or VCD spectra; IR spectra; NMR spectra; mass spectra; and chromatographic and other techniques.

In a separate paragraph, experimental biological material should be reported as authenticated if cultivated or from a natural habitat, and the herbarium deposit site and voucher number should be recorded. The month and year when the organisms were collected should be stated, and it is recommended that the exact collection location be provided using a GPS navigation tool. All microorganisms used experimentally should bear a strain designation number and the culture collection in which they are deposited. The scientific name (genus, species, authority citation, and family) should be presented when first mentioned in the body of the manuscript. Thereafter, the authority should be eliminated, and the generic name should be reduced (except in tables and figure legends) to the first capital letter of the name (but avoid ambiguity, if two or more generic names have the same first letter). If the biological material has not been identified as to species, the manuscript will not be considered for publication unless a special protocol has been followed. Thus, a voucher specimen of the organism should be deposited with a recognized taxonomist for the particular group of organisms in question. The taxonomist should then assign to the specimen an identifying number unique to the organism so that any additional collections of the same organism would bear this same number. The number will be retained until the organism is completely identified. The taxonomist should write a brief taxonomic description to be included in the manuscript, which should state how the organism in question relates morphologically to known species. Contributors should use DNA sequence analysis to assist with the taxonomic identification of unknown microorganisms, and to deposit these data in GenBank . Photographs of incompletely identified organisms may be included as Supporting Information. Authors should be aware of the fact that the large-scale collection of marine or terrestrial organisms may have negative ecological effects. Therefore, authors describing an investigation derived from large-scale collections should thus include a statement in their manuscript (in the “Biological Material” paragraph of the Experimental Section) explaining why the collection had no significant adverse ecological effect or justifying such effect in terms of the benefit from the resulting work. When organisms are collected from a foreign country, the corresponding author must state in the cover letter with the submitted manuscript that formal collection permission was obtained. Authors who purchase dried “herbal remedies” or other materials from companies must make provision for their proper deposit in a herbarium or other permanent repository, for access by future workers. When a commercially available extract is obtained, the extraction procedure from the organism of origin must be specified. The identification of the extract should be supported by an HPLC trace of known secondary metabolite constituents of the organism, which should be included with the manuscript as Supporting Information.

When physical and spectroscopic data are presented in the body of the manuscript, the following general style must be used (with the various commonly used techniques presented in this same order):

Romucosine (1): colorless needles (CHCl 3 ); mp 152–153 °C; [a] 25 D  –110 ( c 0.4, CHCl 3 ); UV (EtOH) λ max (log ε) 235 (4.23), 275 (4.18), 292 (sh) (3.52), 325 (3.41) nm; IR (Nujol) ν max 1680, 1040, 920 cm –1 ; 1 H NMR (CDCl 3 , 400 MHz) δ 8.11 (1H, d, J = 7.6 Hz, H-11), 7.54–7.28 (2H, m, H-9, H-10), 7.27 (1H, m, H-8), 6.59 (1H, s, H-3), 6.10, 5.97 (each 1H, d, J = 1.5 Hz, OC H 2 O), 4.86 (1H, dd, J = 13.7, 4.4 Hz, H-6a), 4.44 (1H, m, H-5a), 3.77 (3H, s, NCOOC H 3 ), 3.06 (1H, m, H-7a), 2.99 (1H, m, H-5b), 2.91 (1H, m, H-7b), 2.82 (1H, m, H-4a), 2.61 (1H, m, H-4b); 13 C NMR (CDCl 3 , 100 MHz) δ 155.8 (C, N C OOCH 3 ), 146.8 (C, C-2), 143.0 (C, C-1), 135.8 (C, C-7a), 130.7 (C, C-11a), 128.7 (CH, C-8), 127.79 (C, C-3a), 127.78 (CH, C-9), 127.2 (CH, C-10), 127.0 (CH, C-11), 125.6 (C, C-3b), 117.3 (C, C-1a), 107.6 (CH, C-3), 100.9 (CH2, OCH 2 O), 52.7 (CH3, NCOO C H 3 ), 51.7 (CH, C-6a), 39.2 (CH2, C-5), 34.5 (CH2, C-7), 30.4 (CH2, C-4); EIMS m / z 323 [M] + (98), 308 (28), 292 (5), 262 (20), 248 (21), 236 (81), 235 (100), 206 (17), 178 (27), 88 (17); HREIMS m / z 323.1152 (calcd for C 19 H 17 NO 4 , 323.1158).

The correct presentation of NMR spectroscopic data is shown in the table below.

Table 1. NMR Spectroscopic Data (400 MHz, C6D6) for Aurilides B ( 1 ) and C ( 2 )

The correct format to present elemental analysis data is: anal. C 72.87, H 11.13%, calcd for C 37 H 68 O 6 , C 73.02, H 11.18%. The structures of compounds are expected to be supported by high-resolution mass spectrometry (error limit 5 ppm or 0.003 m / z units) or elemental analysis. Melting point determinations should not be provided for compounds described as “amorphous solids.” The unit of concentration to be used for optical rotation measurements is grams per 100 mL. UV extinction coefficient data should be provided as log є values, to two places of decimals. In reporting 1 H NMR data of diastereotopic methylene protons, the deshielded one should be listed as the “a” proton and the shielded one as the “b” proton, as in “H-10a” and “H-10b”, respectively. If two proton or carbon signals in an NMR spectrum appear at the same chemical shift but are still distinguishable, an additional decimal place (three for 1 H NMR data and two for 13 C NMR data) may be used to designate the resonance in question. Carbon-13 NMR data should be reported to the nearest 0.1 ppm with the number of attached protons designated using the C, CH, CH 2 , and CH 3 notation.

Authors must emphasize any unexpected, new, and/or significant hazards or risks associated with the reported work. This information should be in the experimental details section of the Article, Note, or Rapid Communication.

Associated Content

This section has the bolded subheading Supporting Information and should contain a brief non- sentence description of each file deposited. (A full description of the requirements for the Supporting Information is provided later this document.)

Author Information

A section may be included, as needed, entitled “Author Notes” to provide pertinent information on the authors, such as the names of authors who contributed equally to the article.

Acknowledgments

The Acknowledgments section should include credits [initial(s) and last name] for technical assistance, financial support, and other appropriate recognition. During manuscript submission, the submitting author is asked to select funding sources from the list of agencies included in the FundRef Registry .

The References section should provide both citations to the literature and all notes, regardless of their nature, which should be numbered in order of appearance in the manuscript and cited in the text with superscript numbers. Each reference may have its own citation number, or alternatively, references referring to the same topic may be grouped under a common number using alphabetical subdesignations (e.g., 1a, 1b, 1c). Each note should be assigned its own number. References and notes should follow the format shown:

• Journal references can be provided in any style, as noted in the Review Ready Submission section, and titles must be included.
• Linington, R. G.; Williams, P. G.; MacMillan, J. B. Problems in Organic Structure Determination. A Practical Approach to NMR Spectroscopy ; CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group: Boca Raton, FL, 2016.
• Harada, N.; Nakanishi, K.; Berova, N. In Comprehensive Chiroptical Spectroscopy, Vol. 2; Applications in Stereochemical Analysis of Synthetic Compounds, Natural Products, and Biomolecules ; Berova, N., Polavarapu, P. L., Nakanishi, K., Woody, R. W., Eds.; John Wiley & Sons: New York, 2012; pp 115–166.
• Zheng, G.; Kakisawa, H. Chin. Sci. Bull. 1990 , 35 , 1406–1407; Chem. Abstr. 1991 , 114 , 43213 m .
• Imai, A. Pharmacognosy of the Aerial Parts of Black Cohosh ( Cimicifuga racemosa ). Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2013.
• Davis, R. U.S. Patent 5,708,591, 1998.
• Partial data for plakinic acid M were reported in the Supporting Information of Ref 5a, but a more complete listing is given here for comparative purposes.
• World Health Organization. Fact Sheet No. 94, 2015. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/ (accessed October 1, 2015).

For additional information on the reference and note format to use, see The ACS Style Guide , 3rd ed. (2006) ( https://pubs.acs.org/page/styleguide ), available from Oxford University Press, Order Department, 2001 Evans Road, Cary, NC 27513 ( http://www.oup.com ).

The author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all references. In particular, authors must cite all of the references from their own work on a particular topic, such as all papers published or submitted on the constituents of a given organism under consideration. In addition to the citation, it should be explicitly indicated in the text if this is a continuing work for the same group. Because subscribers to the Web edition are now able to click on the “CAS” tag following each reference to retrieve the corresponding CAS abstract, reference accuracy is critical. Journal abbreviations should be those used by Chemical Abstracts [see Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI) 1907 – 2004 ]. A list of journal abbreviations in the ACS Style Guide can also be accessed.

The author should supply the Editor-in-Chief with copies of related manuscripts that are cited as “in press” or “submitted” for use by the editors and the reviewers in evaluating the manuscript under consideration.

Nomenclature

It is the responsibility of the authors to provide correct nomenclature. All nomenclature must be consistent and unambiguous and should conform with current American usage. Insofar as possible, authors should use systematic names similar to those used by Chemical Abstracts Service, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. For new natural products that are closely related structurally to known compounds, it is much preferred to assign the new compound as a derivative of the known compound, rather than introduce a completely new trivial name into the literature.

Chemical Abstracts ( CA ) nomenclature rules are described in Appendix IV of the Chemical Abstracts Index Guide . A list of ring systems, including names and numbering systems, is found in the Ring Systems Handbook , American Chemical Society, Columbus, OH, 2003, and its latest cumulative supplement. For CA nomenclature advice, consult the Manager of Nomenclature Services, Chemical Abstracts Service, P.O. Box 3012, Columbus, OH 43210-0012. A name generation service is available for a fee through CAS Client Services, 2540 Olentangy River Road, P.O. Box 3343, Columbus, OH 43210-0334; tel: (614) 447- 3870; fax: (614) 447-3747; or e-mail: [email protected].

For IUPAC rules, see:

• Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry, Recommendations, 1990 ; Blackwell Scientific Publications: Oxford, England, 1990.
• A Guide to IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Compounds, Recommendations, 1993 ; Blackwell Scientific Publications: Oxford, England, 1993.
• Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry, Sections A – F and H ; Pergamon Press: Elmsford, NY, 1979.
• Compendium of Macromolecular Nomenclature ; Blackwell Scientific Publications: Oxford, England, 1991.
• Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents , 2 nd ed.; Portland Press, Ltd.: London, England, 1992.
• Selected IUPAC recommendations can be found on the Web at http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iupac/iupac.html . 
• The ACS Web site has links to nomenclature recommendations: chemistry.org .

Abbreviations

Abbreviations are used without periods. Standard abbreviations should be used throughout the manuscript. All nonstandard abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and must be defined in the text following their first use. The preferred forms of some of the more commonly used abbreviations are mp, bp, °C, K, s, min, h, mL, μ L, kg, g, mg, μ g, cm, mm, nm, mol, mmol, μ mol, ppm, TLC, GC, NMR, MS, UV, ECD/VCD, and IR. For further information, refer to The ACS Style Guide (2006).

Authors should not provide a separate list of abbreviations in a manuscript; additional abbreviations should be spelled out in full the first time they are mentioned. Authors are discouraged from using abbreviations for terms that are included in the manuscript in only a few instances.

Figures, Schemes, and Charts are numbered with Arabic numerals. Blocks of chemical structures should not be designated as “Figures”. Each graphic must be identified outside the frame of the graphic. The quality of the illustrations depends on the quality of the originals provided. Graphics cannot be modified or enhanced by the journal production staff. The graphics must be submitted as part of the manuscript file and are used in the production of the Journal (material deposited as Supporting Information will not be published in the print edition). The preferred submission procedure is to embed graphics in a Word document. It may help to print the manuscript on a laser printer to ensure all artwork is clear and legible.

Additional acceptable file formats are TIFF, PDF, EPS (vector artwork), or CDX (ChemDraw file). Labeling of all figure parts should be present, and the parts should be assembled into a single graphic. (For EPS files, ensure all fonts are converted to outlines or embedded in the graphic file. The document settings should be in RGB mode.)

TIFF files should have the following minimum resolution requirements:

• Black and white line art: 1200 dpi
• Grayscale art: 600 dpi
• Color art (RGB mode): 300 dpi

Color graphics submitted in CMYK or at lower resolution may result in poor-quality images. Save graphic files at the final resolution and size using the program used to create the graphic. The inclusion of a color photograph is particularly recommended for manuscripts based on the constituents of organisms that are not identified beyond the genus level. Digital photographs are accepted. Photographs that are single or double column width so that they will not have to be reduced work best.

Layout. In preparing structures for publication, layout is critical. Figures, Schemes, Charts, and blocks of structures are presented in the Journal either in one-column or two-column format.

For efficient use of journal space, single-column illustrations are preferred.

• Maximum width:240 pts (3.33 in.)
• Maximum depth: 660 pts (9.16 in.)
• Minimum width: 300 pts (4.16 in.)
• Maximum width: 504 pts (7 in.)

Authors are advised that structural material labeled as a “Figure” is placed at the top or bottom of a page, as is all two-column material. All structural material that should immediately follow certain text must be designed to fit the one-column format, and its location in the text must be indicated in the manuscript. Structures, arrows, and compound designators should be arranged so as to make maximum use of the width afforded by the one-column or two-column format.

For best results, illustrations should be submitted in the actual size at which they should appear in the Journal. Consistently sized letters and labels in graphics throughout the manuscript will help ensure consistent graphic presentation for publication. Lettering should be no smaller than 4.5 points. (Helvetica or Arial type works well for lettering.) Lines should be no thinner than 0.5 point. Lettering and lines should be of uniform density. If artwork that should be reduced must be submitted, larger lettering and thicker lines should be used so that, when reduced, the artwork meets the above-mentioned parameters.

Complex textures and shading to achieve a three-dimensional effect should be avoided. To show a pattern, a simple cross-hatch design should be used.

Content. Abbreviations such as Me for CH 3 , Et for C 2 H 5 , and Ph (but not Φ ) for C 6 H 5 are acceptable. Make liberal use of “R and X groups” in equations, schemes, and structure blocks to avoid the repetition of similar structures. Do not repeat a structure; the number alone of an earlier structure can be used if a compound occurs several times. Within graphics, structures should be numbered with boldface Arabic numerals, consecutively from left to right, top to bottom, regardless of the order in which the compounds are discussed in the text. It is not necessary to give reagents and conditions in complete detail, since this detail is contained in the Experimental Section. Where needed, numbers such as NMR chemical shifts may be included directly on structural formulas.

Table of Contents/Abstract Graphic

A graphic must be included with each manuscript that will be used for both the abstract and the Table of Contents (TOC) of the Web edition of the Journal issue in which the Article, Note, Perspective, or Review will appear. This graphic should capture the reader’s attention and, in conjunction with the manuscript’s title, should give the reader a quick visual impression of the type of chemistry described and/or the biological results obtained; however it should not be too complex. Structures in the TOC graphic should be constructed as specified in the “Chemical Structures” section below. The TOC graphic should be submitted at the actual size to be used and should be no larger than 3.25 in. (8.5 cm) wide and 1.75 in. (4.45 cm) tall. (See detailed instructions at http://pubs.acs.org/page/4authors/submission/howtosubmit.html .) Text should be limited to labels for compounds, reaction arrows, and figures. The use of color to enhance the scientific value is highly encouraged. The TOC graphic should be inserted on a separate page at the end of the manuscript file. The title and author list will be added during production.

Chemical Structures

Structures should be produced with the use of a drawing program such as ChemDraw. Structure drawing requirements (preset in the ACS Stylesheet in ChemDraw) are as follows:

• chain angle, 120º
• bond spacing, 18% of width
• fixed length, 14.4 pt (0.508 cm, 0.2 in.)
• bold width, 2.0 pt (0.071 cm, 0.0278 in.)
• line width, 0.6 pt (0.021 cm, 0.0084 in.)
• margin width, 1.6 pt (0.056 cm, 0.0222 in.)
• hash spacing, 2.5 pt (0.088 cm, 0.0347 in.)
• font, Arial/Helvetica
• size, 10 pt
• units, points
• tolerances, 5 pixels
• paper, US Letter
• scale, 100%
• (5) Using the ChemDraw ruler or appropriate margin settings, create structure blocks, schemes, and equations having maximum widths of 11.3 cm (one-column format) or 23.6 cm (two-column format)
• (6) Embolden compound numbers, but not atom labels or captions.
• (7) Authors are urged to use only a single configurational descriptor when defining a stereocenter in a chemical structure. Atom numbering should be kept outside of rings wherever possible. Rather than rectangular solid and dashed lines, authors should use solid and dashed wedges to indicate configurations, as shown below. Dots at ring junctions intended to represent hydrogen atoms should not be used. Structures should be drawn in a neat manner ready for direct reproduction, and should not be cluttered or overlapping. Any arrows and numbering used for atoms in figures should not come into contact with bonds or ring systems. See an example of a prepared structure using ChemDraw with the specified preferences below. In molecules containing a chiral biphenyl axis, it is recommended that one of the aromatic rings be drawn in the plane of the paper and the second one be rotated out of the plane of the paper, to reflect the P or M conformation about the biphenyl bond (see below for example).

When the structure of a chiral compound is flipped horizontally, the stereodescriptors should be changed at every stereogenic carbon, otherwise the enantiomer of the relevant compound would be depicted. This is depicted below for the b-D-glucopyranoside of phenol. The 1 to 2 horizontal flip is incorrect since the depicted glucopyranosyl moiety belongs to the L-series of glucopyranoses. The 1 to 3 horizontal rotation through 180°/adjustment of the tetrahydropyran ring is correct and shows the descriptor changes required to retain the D-configuration of the glucopyranose moiety. Alternatively, in the “planar” presentations the 4 to 5 horizontal flip is incorrect and the 4 to 6 horizontal rotation is correct, showing the proper descriptor changes. Please note that presentations 4 and 6 are InChI (International Chemical Identifier) compliant, while 1 and 3 are not.

Authors using other drawing packages should, in as far as possible, modify their program’s parameters so that they reflect the above guidelines.

These should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and should be placed as they should appear in the paper. Footnotes in tables should be given lowercase letter designations and be cited in the table by italic superscript letters. The sequence of letters should proceed by line rather than by column. If a footnote is cited both in the text and in a table, insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the numbered footnote in the text. Each table should be provided with a descriptive heading, which, together with the individual column headings, should make the table, as nearly as possible, self- explanatory. In setting up tabulations, authors are requested to keep in mind the type area of the journal page (17.8 × 25.4 cm) and the column width (8.5 cm), and to make tables conform to the limitations of these dimensions. Arrangements that leave many columns partially filled or that contain much blank space should be avoided.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

A statement describing any financial conflicts of interest or lack thereof is published with each manuscript. During the submission process, the corresponding author must provide this statement on behalf of all authors of the manuscript. The statement should describe all potential sources of bias, including affiliations, funding sources, and financial or management relationships, that may constitute conflicts of interest (please see the ACS Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research ). The statement will be published in the final article. If no conflict of interest is declared, the following statement will be published in the article: “The authors declare no competing financial interest.”

It is a mandatory requirement for authors to deposit copies of NMR spectra for all new compounds in the Supporting Information with at least the 1 H and 13 C NMR spectra included . A typical caption for a spectrum would be: “S1. 1 H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl 3 ) spectrum of the new compound xx ”. Supporting Information pages should be consecutively numbered and a table of contents for the Supporting Information should be included.

This information is provided to the reviewers during the peer-review process (for Review Only) and is available to readers of the published work (for Publication). Supporting Information must be submitted at the same time as the manuscript. See the list of Acceptable Software by File Designation and confirm that your Supporting Information is viewable .

If the manuscript is accompanied by any supporting information files for publication, these files will be made available free of charge to readers. A brief, nonsentence description of the actual contents of each file, including the file type extension, is required. This description should be labeled Supporting Information and should appear before the Acknowledgement and Reference sections.  Examples of sufficient and insufficient descriptions are as follows:

Examples of sufficient descriptions: “Supporting Information: 1 H NMR spectra for all compounds (PDF)” or “Additional experimental details, materials, and methods, including photographs of experimental setup (DOC)”.

Examples of insufficient descriptions: “Supporting Information: Figures S1-S3” or “Additional figures as mentioned in the text”.

When including supporting information for review only, include copies of references that are unpublished or in-press. These files are available only to editors and reviewers.

All ACS journals strongly encourage authors to make the research data underlying their articles publicly available at the time of publication.

Research data is defined as materials and information used in the experiments that enable the validation of the conclusions drawn in the article, including primary data produced by the authors for the study being reported, secondary data reused or analyzed by the authors for the study, and any other materials necessary to reproduce or replicate the results.

The ACS Research Data Policy provides additional information on Data Availability Statements, Data Citation, and Data Repositories.

NMR Data Files

When submitting spectra, authors should adhere to the following guidelines:

A caption should be included on the spectrum, noting the nucleus being measured, the solvent (formula preferred, e.g., CDCl 3 ), and the field strength. A representation of the compound should be included on the spectrum; please use ChemDraw or a related program. The bold compound number used in the manuscript should be included. The largest peak in the 1 H NMR spectrum should normally arise from the compound, not the solvent. All peaks in the 1 H NMR spectrum should be integrated. Chemical shift values should be included. The solvent peak should be clearly labeled on the spectrum. All peaks should be visible on the spectrum. Insets are encouraged to show expanded regions. At minimum, the spectral window should be –1 ppm to 9 ppm for 1 H NMR and –10 ppm to 180 ppm for 13 C NMR. The font should be clear and large enough to read (minimum of 10 point). Horizontal orientation is preferred for spectra.

For every new compound, a copy of a well-resolved 1D proton NMR spectrum and a copy of a proton- decoupled 1D carbon spectrum (conventional, DEPT, DEPTQ, or PENDANT), should be included in the supporting information. In cases where structure assignments of complex molecules depend heavily on NMR data interpretation, including isolated and synthesized natural products, copies of the 2D spectra are requested. All original primary NMR data supporting a submission should be retained and provided if requested. Additionally, authors are strongly encouraged to furnish a folder of the primary (“raw”) NMR data files (free induction decay (FID) and 2D serial files) as additional Supporting Information. Authors reporting compounds of complex, unusual, or unexpected structure are encouraged to provide FID data. The FID data should be mentioned in the Supporting Information availability statement in the manuscript file. The FID and serial file data can also be deposited in a public repository that provides a permanent link, such as a DOI.

When preparing raw NMR data (FIDs):

• One folder (root folder) should be created for each compound
• The root folder should be named clearly, including the compound number and/or a unique identifier
• Establish subfolders for each spectrum and name them according to the type of nucleus measured and experiment performed: 1H, 13C, DEPT, COSY, etc.
• Include in each subfolder the actual FID or serial files, acquisition data and processing parameters for each experiment; depending on the spectrometer used, this can be several files or a combination of further folders and files
• In a text document with the same name as the root folder, include the name of the manufacturer of the spectrometer used to collect the data, the acquisition software and processing programs used to analyze the data and the operating frequency used to measure each nucleus (e.g. 300 MHz 1H or 75 MHz 13C)
• Include a structure file that shows the structure and compound identifier for each provided dataset. MolFile is the strongly preferred format
• Compress the entire root folder into a single zip archive file

Recommendations for Crystal Structure Papers

Although the results of crystal structure determinations are frequently of interest to readers of the Journal, details of crystal structure experiments are generally not. Results appropriate for the Journal are not, however, sufficient to allow referees to assess the quality of an X-ray structure determination. Thus, it is recommended that manuscripts involving such determinations be accompanied by material provided for the benefit of the reviewers only. Authors should submit the following minimum materials, in tabular form where possible, for each compound for which X-ray crystallographic supplementary data are available.

Published Manuscript:

• Crystal data, including chemical formula, formula weight, crystal system and space group, cell dimensions (with uncertainties), number of formulas per unit cell, calculated density, radiation used, and wavelength. When determined, the Flack and/or Hooft parameters should be included.
• Final fractional atomic coordinates. Hydrogen atom coordinates should be included only if they have been experimentally determined or refined. Calculated coordinates should be provided as reviewer’s material.
• A brief outline of procedures used for data collection and refinement, including the method used for intensity measurement, 0 limits, portion of the full sphere collected, handling of absorption (if applicable), method of refinement, number of reflections used in the refinement and criteria for their choice, treatment of hydrogen atoms, and final R factor.
• A perspective diagram (perhaps prepared by ORTEP, PLUTO, or similar programs) that gives the atom-numbering scheme if it is not unambiguous from the remainder of the paper. If the figure is a stereoview, it should be provided reduced to correct size, about 55–60 mm between images.

Besides a description of the structure, other information (important distances, torsion angles, results of best plane calculations, etc.) may be included if appropriate. A note should be cited at an appropriate place in the manuscript and included in the References and Notes Section: “Crystallographic data for the structure(s) reported in this paper have been deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. Copies of the data can be obtained, free of charge, on application to the Director, CCDC, 12 Union Road, Cambridge CB2 1EZ, UK (fax: +44-(0)1223-336033 or e-mail: [email protected] ) .”

Reviewer’s Material:

• Any calculated coordinate (e.g., hydrogen atoms).
• A full list of bond distances (and their uncertainties).
• A full list of bond angles (and their uncertainties).

All tables should be clearly legible, the contents nonredundant, and their interpretation immediately obvious. Authors must provide this information in the form of a Crystallographic Information File (CIF) for each compound for which X-ray crystallographic data are determined, with each CIF being separated from any other Supporting Information files.

Authors will deposit the tables of final fractional atomic coordinates and the full list of bond lengths and angles at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) prior to the submission of their paper. The CCDC deposition number must be included in the submitted manuscript. A checklist of data items for deposition is available at www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk .

A well-written paper helps share your results most clearly. ACS Publications’ English Editing Service is designed to help scientists communicate their research effectively. Our subject-matter expert editors will edit your manuscript for grammar, spelling, and other language errors so your ideas are presented at their best.

The quality of illustrations in ACS journals and partner journals depends on the quality of the original files provided by the authors. Figures are not modified or enhanced by journal production staff. All graphics must be prepared and submitted in digital format.

Graphics should be inserted into the main body whenever possible. Please see Appendix 2 for additional information.

Any graphic (figure chart, scheme, or equation) that has appeared in an earlier publication should include a credit line citing the original source. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to re-use this material.

The impact of your research is not limited to what you can express with words. Tables and figures such as graphs, photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and other visuals can play a significant role in effectively communicating your findings. Our Artwork Editing and Graphical Abstract services generate publication-ready figures and Table of Contents (TOC) graphics that conform to your chosen journal’s specifications. For figures, this includes changes to file type, resolution, color space, font, scale, line weights, and layout (to improve readability and professional appearance). For TOC graphics, our illustrators can work with a rough sketch or concept or help extract the key findings of your manuscript directly for use as a visual summary of your paper.

Preparing for Submission

Manuscripts, graphics, supporting information, and required forms, as well as manuscript revisions, must all be submitted in digital format through ACS Paragon Plus , which requires an ACS ID to log in. Registering for an ACS ID is fast, free, and does not require an ACS membership. Please refer to Appendix 1 for additional information on preparing your submission

Journal of Natural Products authors are allowed to deposit an initial draft of their manuscript in a preprint service such as ChemRxiv , arXiv, or bioRxiv. A patent or a published patent application is not considered to be a prior "publication". Please note any use of a preprint server, patents, and dissertations in the cover letter, and as appropriate, state how the manuscript has been adjusted/updated between deposition and submission. All other prior/redundant publications are forbidden. Upon publication in Journal of Natural Products , authors are advised to add a link from the preprint to the published paper via the Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

Please suggest 4 reviewers. Authors are encouraged to avoid suggesting reviewers from the authors’ institutions. Do not suggest reviewers who may have a real or perceived conflict of interest . Whenever possible, suggest academic email addresses rather than personal email addresses.

If your submission is declined for publication by this journal, the editors might deem your work to be better suited for another ACS Publications journal or partner journal and suggest that the authors consider transferring the submission. Manuscript Transfer simplifies and shortens the process of submitting to another ACS journal or partner journal, as all the coauthors, suggested reviewers, manuscript files, and responses to submission questions are copied by ACS Paragon Plus to the new draft submission. Authors are free to accept or decline the transfer offer.

Note that each journal is editorially independent. Transferring a manuscript is not a guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted, as the final publication decision will belong to the editor of the next journal.

PRODUCTION AND PUBLICATION

Correction of the galley proofs is the responsibility of the Corresponding Author. The Corresponding Author of an accepted manuscript will receive e-mail notification and complete instructions when page proofs are available for review via ACS Direct Correct . Extensive or important changes on page proofs, including changes to the title or list of authors, are subject to review by the editor.

It is the responsibility of the Corresponding Author to ensure that all authors listed on the manuscript agree with the changes made on the proofs. Galley proofs should be returned within 48 hours in order to ensure timely publication of the manuscript.

Accepted manuscripts will be published on the ACS Publications Web site as soon as page proofs are corrected and all author concerns are resolved. The first date on which the document is published on the Web is considered the publication date.

Publication of manuscripts on the Web may occur weeks in advance of the cover date of the issue of publication. Authors should take this into account when planning their patent and intellectual property activities related to a document and should ensure that all patent information is available at the time of first publication, whether ASAP or issue publication.

All articles published ahead of print receive a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, which is used to cite the manuscript before and after the paper appears in an issue. Additionally, any supplemental information submitted along with the manuscript will automatically be assigned a DOI and hosted on Figshare to promote open data discoverability and use of your research outputs.

Manuscripts will be published on the “ASAP Articles” page on the web as soon as page proofs are corrected and all author concerns are resolved. ASAP publication usually occurs within a few working days of receipt of page proof corrections, which can be several weeks in advance of the cover date of the issue.

The American Chemical Society follows guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when considering any ethical concerns regarding a published article, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern.

Additions and Corrections

Additions and Corrections may be requested by the author(s) or initiated by the Editor to address important issues or correct errors and omissions of consequence that arise after publication of an article. All Additions and Corrections are subject to approval by the Editor, and should bring new and directly relevant information and corrections that fix scientific facts. Minor corrections and additions will not be published. Readers who detect errors of consequence in the work of others should contact the corresponding author of that work.

Additions and Corrections must be submitted as new manuscripts via ACS Paragon Plus by the Corresponding Author for publication in the “Addition/Correction” section of the Journal. The corresponding author should obtain approval from all coauthors prior to submitting or provide evidence that such approval has been solicited. The manuscript should include the original article title and author list, citation including DOI, and details of the correction.

Retractions

Articles may be retracted for scientific or ethical reasons and may be requested by the article author(s) or by the journal Editor(s), but are ultimately published at the discretion of the Editor. Articles that contain seriously flawed or erroneous data such that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon may be retracted in order to correct the scientific record. When an article is retracted, a notice of Retraction will be published containing information about the reason for the Retraction. The originally published article will remain online except in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. where deemed legally necessary, or if the availability of the published content poses public health risks).

Expressions of Concern

Expressions of Concern may be issued at the discretion of the Editor if:

• there is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors;
• there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case;
• an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive;
• an investigation is underway but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time.

Upon completion of any related investigation, and when a final determination is made about the outcome of the article, the Expression of Concern may be replaced with a Retraction notice or Correction.

At ACS Publications, we know it is important for you to be able to share your peer reviewed, published work with colleagues in the global community of scientists. As sharing on sites known as scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs) is becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s scholarly research ecosystem, we would like to remind you of the many ways in which you, a valued ACS author, can share your published work .

Publishing open access makes it easy to share your work with friends, colleagues, and family members. In addition, ACS Publications makes it easy to share your newly published research with ACS Articles on Request (see below). Don’t forget to promote your research and related data on social media, at conferences, and through scholarly communication networks. Increase the impact of your research using the following resources: Altmetrics , Figshare , ACS Certified Deposit

When your article is published in an ACS journal or partner journal, corresponding authors are provided with a link that offers up to 50 free digital prints of the final published work. This link is valid for the first 12 months following online publication, and can be shared via email or an author’s website. After one year, the access restrictions to your article will be lifted, and you can share the Articles on Request URL on social media and other channels. To access all your Articles on Request links, log in to your ACS Publishing Center account and visit the “My Published Manuscripts” page.

Article , journal , and commercial reprints are available to order.

Appendix 1: PREPARING FOR SUBMISSION

We’ve developed ACS’ publishing and editorial policies in consultation with the research communities that we serve, including authors and librarians. Browse our policies below to learn more.

Ethical Guidelines

ACS editors have provided Ethical Guidelines for persons engaged in the publication of chemical research—specifically, for editors, authors, and reviewers. Each journal also has a specific policy on prior publication .

OFAC Compliance

As a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the American Chemical Society (ACS) is required to comply with U.S. sanctions laws and regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). While these laws and regulations permit U.S.-based publishers like ACS to engage in publishing-related activities with authors located in sanctioned regions in many cases, ACS may be prohibited under U.S. law from engaging in publishing-related activities in some cases, including, but not limited to, instances where an author or the institution with which an author is affiliated is located in a particular sanctioned region or has been designated by OFAC as a Specially Designated National (SDN) pursuant to certain U.S. sanctions programs. ACS reserves the right to refrain from engaging in any publishing-related activities that ACS determines in its sole discretion may be in violation of U.S. law.

Safety Considerations

Authors must emphasize any unexpected, new, and/or significant hazards or risks associated with the reported work. This information should be in the Experimental Section of a full article and included in the main text of a letter. Statement examples can be found in the Safety Statement Style Sheet  and additional information on communicating safety information from the  ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication is freely available here .

A statement describing any financial conflicts of interest or lack thereof is published in each ACS journal and partner journal article.

During the submission process, the Corresponding Author must provide a statement on behalf of all authors of the manuscript, describing all potential sources of bias, including affiliations, funding sources, and financial or management relationships, that may constitute conflicts of interest. If the manuscript is accepted, the statement will be published in the final article.

If the manuscript is accepted and no conflict of interest has been declared, the following statement will be published in the final article: “The authors declare no competing financial interest.”

In publishing only original research, ACS is committed to deterring plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. ACS Publications uses CrossCheck's iThenticate software to screen submitted manuscripts for similarity to published material. Note that your manuscript may be screened during the submission process.

Further information about plagiarism can be found in Part B of the Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research . See also the press release regarding ACS' participation in the CrossCheck initiative.

Authorship, Author List, and Coauthor Notification

Authors are required to obtain the consent of all their coauthors prior to submitting a manuscript. The submitting author accepts the responsibility of notifying all coauthors that the manuscript is being submitted.

During manuscript submission, the submitting author must provide contact information (full name, email address, institutional affiliation, and mailing address) for all of the coauthors. Because all of the author names are automatically imported into the electronic Journal Publishing Agreement , the names must be entered into ACS Paragon Plus. (Note that coauthors are not required to register in ACS Paragon Plus.) Author affiliation should reflect where the work was completed, even if the author has since left that institution. Authors may include a note with a current address if their institution has changed since the work was completed.

To expedite the processing of your manuscript, please format your author and affiliation information according the guidelines in this link: https://pubsapp.acs.org/paragonplus/submission/author-address-information.pdf .

Criteria for authorship can be found in Part B of the Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research . Artificial intelligence (AI) tools do not qualify for authorship. The use of AI tools for text or image generation should be disclosed in the manuscript within the Acknowledgment section with a description of when and how the tools were used. For more substantial use cases or descriptions of AI tool use, authors should provide full details within the Methods or other appropriate section of the manuscript.

If any change in authorship is necessary after a manuscript has been submitted, confirmation is required that all of the authors (including those being added or removed) have been notified and have agreed to the change. To provide this confirmation, authors are asked to complete and sign an authorship change form and provide the completed form to the appropriate editorial office.

Authors with a single name:  If you, or any of your coauthors, have only one name, please follow these steps for proper submission to ACS Paragon Plus:

• First (Given) Name Field: Enter an asterisk (*) into the "First (Given) Name" field.
• Last (Family) Name Field: Enter your single name into the "Last (Family) Name" field.

If your paper is accepted, the asterisk (*) will be removed from the published version of the paper.

Patent Activities and Intellectual Property

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all patent activities and intellectual property issues are satisfactorily resolved prior to first publication (ASAP or in issue). Acceptance and publication will not be delayed for pending or unresolved issues of this nature.

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)

Authors submitting manuscript revisions are required to provide their own personal, validated ORCID iD before completing the submission, if an ORCID iD is not already associated with their ACS Paragon Plus user profiles. This ID may be provided during original manuscript submission or when submitting the manuscript revision. All authors are strongly encouraged to register for an ORCID iD, a unique researcher identifier. The ORCID iD will be displayed in the published article for any author on a manuscript who has a validated ORCID iD associated with ACS when the manuscript is accepted.

ORCID iDs should not be typed into the manuscript. ACS publishes only those ORCID iDs that have been properly verified and linked before the manuscript is accepted . After your ORCID iD is linked, it will be displayed automatically in all subsequently accepted manuscripts for any/all ACS journals. We do not publish ORCID iDs provided during proof review or via other communications after a manuscript is accepted for publication.

With an ORCID iD, you can create a profile of your research activities to distinguish yourself from other researchers with similar names, and make it easier for your colleagues to find your publications. If you do not yet have an ORCID iD, or you wish to associate your existing ORCID iD with your ACS Paragon Plus account, you may do so by clicking on “Edit Your Profile” from your ACS Paragon Plus account homepage and following the ORCID-related links. Learn more at www.orcid.org .

Copyright and Permissions

To obtain forms and guidelines for completing the Journal Publishing Agreement or obtaining permissions from copyright owners, and to explore a Copyright Learning Module for chemists, click here .

Funder Reporting Requirement

Authors are required to report funding sources and grant/award numbers. Enter ALL sources of funding for ALL authors in BOTH the Funder Registry Tool in ACS Paragon Plus and in your manuscript to meet this requirement.

Open Access Compliance

ACS offers options by which authors can fulfill the requirements for open access and deposition into repositories for funded research. Visit our ACS Open Science site to see how to fulfill requirements for specific funders  and to find out if you are eligible to publish under a Read + Publish agreement between ACS and your institution. You can also find out more about Open Access Compliance and ACS Open Science initiatives .

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

During manuscript submission, ACS journal authors have the option to submit a statement sharing information related to diversity and inclusion that is relevant for their paper. If supplying a diversity and inclusion statement, the corresponding author must provide this on behalf of all authors of the manuscript during the submission process. These statements include but are not limited to analysis of citation diversity and acknowledgment of indigenous land on which research was conducted. Statements expressing political beliefs are not permitted and may be removed by the journal office. All statements are subject to final review by the Editor.

• Citation Diversity Statement: The citation diversity statement should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. ACS recommends including the following: (1) the importance of citation diversity, (2) the proportion of citations by gender and race/ethnicity for the first and last authors, (3) the method used to determine those proportions and its limitations, and (4) steps taken to by the authors to improve citation diversity in the article. We recognize that one limitation of the current methods is that it cannot account for intersex, non-binary, and transgender people, or Indigenous and mixed-race authors. (Adapted from BMES/Springer Guidelines )
• Land acknowledgment: The land acknowledgment statement should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. The statement should link to the institutions’ formal land acknowledgments on which the research took place, if possible. Further guidance for creating these statements can be found here: https://nativegov.org/news/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/ .

Appendix 2: Preparing Graphics

Digital graphics pasted into manuscripts should have the following minimum resolutions:

• Black and white line art, 1200 dpi
• Grayscale art, 600 dpi
• Color art, 300 dpi

Graphics must fit a one- or two-column format. Single-column graphics can be sized up to 240 points wide (3.33 in.) and double-column graphics must be sized between 300 and 504 points (4.167 in. and 7 in.). The maximum depth for all graphics is 660 points (9.167 in.) including the caption (allow 12 pts. For each line of caption text). Lettering should be no smaller than 4.5 points in the final published format. The text should be legible when the graphic is viewed full-size. Helvetica or Arial fonts work well for lettering. Lines should be no thinner than 0.5 point.

Color may be used to enhance the clarity of complex structures, figures, spectra, and schemes, etc., and color reproduction of graphics is provided at no additional cost to the author. Graphics intended to appear in black and white or grayscale should not be submitted in color.

Type of Graphics

Table of contents (toc)/abstract graphic.

Consult the Guidelines for Table of Contents/Abstract Graphics for specifications.

Our team of subject-matter experts and graphical designers can also help generate a compelling TOC graphic to convey your key findings. Learn more about our Graphical Abstract service .

A caption giving the figure number and a brief description must be included below each figure. The caption should be understandable without reference to the text. It is preferable to place any key to symbols used in the artwork itself, not in the caption. Ensure that any symbols and abbreviations used in the text agree with those in the artwork.

Charts (groups of structures that do not show reactions) may have a brief caption describing their contents.

Each table must have a brief (one phrase or sentence) title that describes the contents. The title should be understandable without reference to the text. Details should be put in footnotes, not in the title. Tables should be used when the data cannot be presented clearly in the narrative, when many numbers must be presented, or when more meaningful inter-relationships can be conveyed by the tabular format. Tables should supplement, not duplicate, information presented in the text and figures. Tables should be simple and concise.

Each scheme (sequences of reactions) may have a brief caption describing its contents.

Chemical structures should be produced with the use of a drawing program such as ChemDraw.

Journal of Natural Products authors are encouraged to submit images to be considered for use on the journal’s front cover or Supplementary Covers at the time of the submission of their revised manuscript. If your article is accepted for publication, your suggestion may also be selected for use on one of the journal’s covers. If your art is selected for front cover, ACS will send you information about how to request one complimentary 18” by 24” printed poster featuring your work. Images chosen for the front cover will be published at no cost to the author.

Cover image submissions should be colorful and visually engaging, with minimal text. The cover image should not resemble a graphical abstract or data figure, but rather should be an artistic and scientifically accurate representation of the manuscript. Cover illustrations for the Journal of Natural Products generally are composed of a high-contrast photograph of an organism (e.g., higher or lower plant, microbe, or a marine animal), which is overlaid by the chemical structure of a constituent of significance from this organism. Representative past cover motifs are provided on the journal website . 

Image files should be submitted as TIF, JPG, PNG, or EPS files (not PDF or PPT) with a resolution of at least 300 dpi for pixel-based images. Cover art should be 8.19 inches (20.8 cm) wide × 10 inches (25.4 cm) high at 300 ppi, and submission of “layered” artwork is encouraged. The journal’s logo will obscure the top 3 inches (7.62 cm) of the image. Authors should submit the cover image, along with a brief (<50-word) cover caption explaining the significance of the cover motif, inclusive of the citation of pertinent bibliography presented in the correct style for the journal. These items should be submitted as supplementary files to ACS Paragon Plus with the revised manuscript. Authors are responsible for providing signed permission forms as deemed necessary by the American Chemical Society. 

If you wish to be considered only for the front cover, and not a paid supplementary cover, please respond NO accordingly to the Supplementary Cover Art question in ACS Paragon Plus. For more information on the Supplementary Covers program, please see this webpage .

All art submitted for consideration for a supplementary cover will also be considered for a front cover.

Web Enhanced Objects (WEO)

The Web editions of ACS journals allow readers to view multimedia attachments such as animations and movies that complement understanding of the research being reported.

WEOs should be uploaded in ACS Paragon Plus with ‘Web Enhanced Object’ selected as the file designation. Consult the list of compatible WEO formats .

1155 Sixteenth Street N.W. Washington, DC 20036

京ICP备13047075

Copyright © 2017 American Chemical Society

• Journals A–Z
• C&EN Archives
• ACS Legacy Archives

User Resources

• ACS Members
• Authors & Reviewers
• Website Demos
• Privacy Policy
• Mobile Site
• For Advertisers
• Institutional Sales
• Connect with ACS Publications

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Published: 05 June 2024

How we talk about harmful chemicals in the environment

• Shira Joudan 1   na1  

Nature Chemistry ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

• Environmental monitoring

Environmental contamination is in the news more than ever. Shira Joudan introduces key concepts to talk about what happens to chemicals in the environment and what chemists should consider in their day-to-day lives, both at work and at home.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 12 print issues and online access

251,40 € per year

only 20,95 € per issue

Buy this article

• Purchase on Springer Link
• Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Cousins, I. T., Ng, C. A., Wang, Z. & Scheringer, M. Environ. Sci. Process. Impacts 21 , 781–792 (2019).

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Tian, Z. et al. Science. 371 , 185–189 (2020).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Wiemeyer, S. N. & Porter, R. D. Nature 227 , 737–738 (1970).

Anastas, P. T. & Warner, J. C. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice (Oxford Univ. Press, 1998).

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges S. Baskaran for useful discussions.

Author information

Twitter/X: @ShiraJoudan

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Chemistry at University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Shira Joudan

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shira Joudan .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Joudan, S. How we talk about harmful chemicals in the environment. Nat. Chem. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01554-5

Download citation

Published : 05 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01554-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Multifunctional Sodium Gluconate Electrolyte Additive Enabling Highly Reversible Zn Anodes

• Published: 04 June 2024

Cite this article

• Kang Zhao 1 , 2 ,
• Jianan Zhao 2 ,
• Meng Yu 1 ,
• Fangming Liu 1 ,
• Yang Dong 1 ,
• Shiwen Wang 2 &
• Fangyi Cheng 1  

Sodium gluconate (SG) is reported as an electrolyte additive for rechargeable aqueous zinc batteries. The SG addition is proposed to modulate the nucleation overpotential and plating behaviors of Zn by forming a shielding buffer layer because of the adsorption priority and large steric hindrance effect, which contributes to limited rampant Zn 2+ diffusion and mitigated hydrogen evolution and corrosion. With the introduction of 30 mmol/L SG in 2 mol/L ZnSO 4 electrolyte, the Zn anode harvests a reversible cycling of 1200 h at 5 mA/cm 2 and a high average Coulombic efficiency of Zn plating/stripping (99.6%). Full cells coupling Zn anode with V 2 O 5 ·1.6H 2 O or polyaniline cathode far surpass the SG additivefree batteries in terms of cycle stability and rate capability. This work provides an inspiration for design of a high-effective and low-cost electrolyte additive towards Zn-based energy storage devices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Achieving both high reversible and stable Zn anode by a practical glucose electrolyte additive toward high-performance Zn-ion batteries

Polarizable Additive with Intermediate Chelation Strength for Stable Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries

Boosting Zn anode reversibility via electrolyte solvation structure mediation by ethylene glycol monomethyl ether additive

Zhao R., Wang H., Du H., Yang Y., Gao Z., Qie L., Huang Y., Nat. Commun. , 2022 , 13 , 3252.

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Wang L., Zhang B., Zhou W., Zhao Z., Xin Liu, Zhao R., Sun Z., Li H., Wang X., Zhang T., Jin H., Li W., Elzatahry A., Hassan Y., Fan H. J., Zhao D., Chao D., J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2024 , 146 , 6199.

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Liu M., Yuan W., Ma G., Qiu K., Nie X., Liu Y., Shen S., Zhang N., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. , 2023 , 62 , e202304444.

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Wang Q., Kaushik S., Xiao X., Xu Q., Chem. Soc. Rev. , 2023 , 52 , 6139.

Li H., Zhao R., Zhou W., Wang L., Li W., Zhao D., Chao D., JACS Au , 2023 , 3 , 2107.

Wu J., Yuan C., Li T., Yuan Z., Zhang H., Li X., J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2021 , 143 , 13135.

Guo X., Zhang Z., Li J., Luo N., Chai G.-L., Miller T. S., Lai F., Shearing P., Brett D. J. L., Han D., Weng Z., He G., Parkin I. P., ACS Energy Lett. , 2021 , 6 , 395.

Wu W., Deng Y., Chen G., Chinese Chem. Lett. , 2023 , 34 , 108424.

Di S., Nie X., Ma G., Yuan W., Wang Y., Liu Y., Shen S., Zhang N., Energy Storage Mater. , 2021 , 43 , 375.

Article   Google Scholar  

Liu X., Fang Y., Liang P., Xu J., Xing B., Zhu K., Liu Y., Zhang J., Yi J., Chinese Chem. Lett. , 2021 , 32 , 2899.

Wang L., Fan G., Liu J., Zhang L., Yu M., Yan Z., Cheng F., Chinese Chem. Lett. , 2021 , 32 , 1095.

Wang T., Tang Y., Yu M., Lu B., Zhang X., Zhou J., Adv. Funct. Mater. , 2023 , 33 , 2306101.

Zhang L., Xiao J., Xiao X., Xin W., Geng Y., Yan Z., Zhu Z., eScience , 2024 , 4 , 100205.

Li J., Rohrens D., Dalfollo G., Wu X., Lu Z., Gao Q., Han B., Sun R., Zhou C., Wang J., Cai Z., Nano Mater. Sci. , 2023 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoms.2023.11.004 .

Huang J.-Q., Guo X., Lin X., Zhu Y., Zhang B., Research , 2019 , 2019 , 2635310.

CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Xiong P., Lin C., Wei Y., Kim J.-H., Jang G., Dai K., Zeng L., Huang S., Kwon S. J., Lee S.-Y., Park H. S., ACS Energy Lett. , 2023 , 8 , 2718.

Zhao K., Fan G., Liu J., Liu F., Li J., Zhou X., Ni Y., Yu M., Zhang Y.-M., Su H., Liu Q., Cheng F., J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2022 , 144 , 11129.

Wang C., Hou J., Gan Y., Xie L., He Y., Hu Q., Liu S., Jun S. C., J. Mater. Chem. A , 2023 , 11 , 8057.

Zhang W., Zhang C., Wang H., Wang H., Chem. Res. Chinese Universities , 2023 , 39 , 1037.

Wang D., Lv D., Liu H., Zhang S., Wang C., Wang C., Yang J., Qian Y., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. , 2022 , 61 , e202212839.

Zheng L., Li H., Wang X., Chen Z., Hu C., Wang K., Gao G., Passerini S., Zhang H., ACS Energy Lett. , 2023 , 8 , 2086.

Huang C., Zhao X., Hao Y., Yang Y., Qian Y., Chang G., Zhang Y., Tang Q., Hu A., Chen X., Energy Environ. Sci. , 2023 , 16 , 1721.

Li T. C., Lin C., Luo M., Wang P., Li D.-S., Li S., Zhou J., Yang H. Y., ACS Energy Lett. , 2023 , 8 , 3258.

Shi X., Wang J., Yang F., Liu X., Yu Y., Lu X., Adv. Funct. Mater. , 2023 , 33 , 2211917.

Hu Z., Zhang F., Zhou A., Hu X., Yan Q., Liu Y., Arshad F., Li Z., Chen R., Wu F., Li L., Nano-Micro Lett. , 2023 , 15 , 171.

Luo X., Zhou M., Luo Z., Shi T., Li L., Xie X., Sun Y., Cao X., Long M., Liang S., Fang G., Energy Storage Mater. , 2023 , 57 , 628.

Hou Z., Gao Y., Zhou R., Zhang B., Adv. Funct. Mater. , 2022 , 32 , 2107584.

Kim M., Lee J., Kim Y., Park Y., Kim H., Choi J. W., J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2023 , 145 , 15776.

Sun P., Ma L., Zhou W., Qiu M., Wang Z., Chao D., Mai W., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. , 2021 , 60 , 18247.

Zhao K., Sheng J., Luo N., Ding J., Luo H., Jia X., Wang S, Fang S., J. Colloid Interf. Sci. , 2024 , 664 , 816.

Wang J., Qiu H., Zhao Z., Zhang Y., Zhao J., Ma Y., Li J., Xing M., Li G., Cui G., Chem. Res. Chinese Universities , 2021 , 37 , 328.

Wan J., Wang R., Liu Z., Zhang L., Liang F., Zhou T., Zhang S., Zhang L., Lu Q., Zhang C., Guo Z., ACS Nano , 2023 , 17 , 1610.

Xin T., Zhou R., Xu Q., Yuan X., Zheng Z., Li Y., Zhang Q., Liu J., Chem. Eng. J. , 2023 , 452 , 139572.

Wang N., Chen X., Wan H., Zhang B., Guan K., Yao J., Ji J., Li J., Gan Y., Lv L., Tao L., Ma G., Wang H., Zhang J., Wang H., Adv. Funct. Mater. , 2023 , 33 , 2300795.

Zhong Y., Cheng Z., Zhang H., Li J., Liu D., Liao Y., Meng J., Shen Y., Huang Y., Nano Energy , 2022 , 98 , 107220.

Yan M., Xu C., Sun Y., Pan H., Li H., Nano Energy , 2021 , 82 , 105739.

Zhao K., Liu F., Fan G., Liu J., Yu M., Yan Z., Zhang N., Cheng F., ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces , 2021 , 13 , 47650.

Zhao Z., Zhao J., Hu Z., Li J., Li J., Zhang Y., Wang C., Cui G., Energy Environ. Sci. , 2019 , 12 , 1938.

Chen Y., Ma D., Ouyang K., Yang M., Shen S., Wang Y., Mi H., Sun L., He G., Zhang P., Nano-Micro Lett. , 2022 , 14 , 154.

Jin Y., Han K. S., Shao Y., Sushko M. L., Xiao J., Pan H., Liu J., Adv. Funct. Mater. , 2020 , 30 , 2003932.

Yin J., Liu H., Li P., Feng X., Wang M., Huang C., Li M., Su Y., Xiao B., Cheng Y., Xu X., Energy Storage Mater. , 2023 , 59 , 102800.

Qin R., Wang Y., Zhang M., Wang Y., Ding S., Song A., Yi H., Yang L., Song Y., Cui Y., Liu J., Wang Z., Li S., Zhao Q., Pan F., Nano Energy , 2021 , 80 , 105478.

Sun C., Wu C., Gu X., Wang C., Wang Q., Nano-Micro Lett. , 2021 , 3 , 89.

Cao Z., Zhu X., Xu D., Dong P., Chee M. O. L., Li X., Zhu K., Ye M., Shen J., Energy Storage Mater. , 2021 , 36 , 132.

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21925503 and 22309167), the PhD Research Fund Project of Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, China (No. 2022BSJJZK10), the Science and Technology Project of Henan Province, China (No. 242102241045), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, China (No. 242300420206) and the Specially-Appointed Professor Project of Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, China.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, P. R. China

Kang Zhao, Meng Yu, Fangming Liu, Yang Dong & Fangyi Cheng

College of New Energy, Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou, 450002, P. R. China

Kang Zhao, Jianan Zhao & Shiwen Wang

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shiwen Wang or Fangyi Cheng .

Ethics declarations

CHENG Fangyi is an editorial board member for Chemical Research in Chinese Universities and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Electronic Supplementary Information

Rights and permissions.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Zhao, K., Zhao, J., Yu, M. et al. Multifunctional Sodium Gluconate Electrolyte Additive Enabling Highly Reversible Zn Anodes. Chem. Res. Chin. Univ. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40242-024-4110-9

Download citation

Received : 28 April 2024

Accepted : 15 May 2024

Published : 04 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40242-024-4110-9

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Electrolyte additive
• Sodium gluconate
• Zn dendrite
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Metal-assisted chemical etching beyond Si: applications to III–V compounds and wide-bandgap semiconductors

* Corresponding authors

a Microsystem Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 16423, USA E-mail: [email protected]

b NanoPower Research Laboratories, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA

c Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Howard University, Washington, USA

d School of Materials Science and Chemistry, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA

e Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Microelectronics Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78758, USA

f Department of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA

Metal-assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) has emerged as a versatile technique for fabricating a variety of semiconductor nanostructures. Since early investigations in 2000, research in this field has provided a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of catalytic etching processes and enabled high control over etching conditions for diverse applications. In this Review, we present an overview of recent developments in the application of MacEtch to nanomanufacturing and processing of III–V based semiconductor materials and other materials beyond Si. We highlight the key findings and developments in MacEtch as applied to GaAs, GaN, InP, GaP, InGaAs, AlGaAs, InGaN, InGaP, SiC, β-Ga 2 O 3 , and Ge material systems. We further review a series of active and passive devices enabled by MacEtch, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs), field-effect transistors (FETs), optical gratings, sensors, capacitors, photodiodes, and solar cells. By reviewing demonstrated control of morphology, optimization of etch conditions, and catalyst-material combinations, we aim to distill the current understanding of beyond-Si MacEtch mechanisms and to provide a bank of reference recipes to stimulate progress in the field.

• This article is part of the themed collection: Recent Review Articles

Article information

Download Citation

Permissions.

S. Znati, J. Wharwood, K. G. Tezanos, X. Li and P. K. Mohseni, Nanoscale , 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D4NR00857J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence . You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication , please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page .

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page .

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content .

Social activity

Search articles by author.

This article has not yet been cited.

Advertisements

• Contact Contact icon Contact
• Training Training icon Training

• Portuguese, Brazil
• Chinese, Simplified

Check the spelling in your query or search for a new term.

Site search accepts advanced operators to help refine your query. Learn more.

Explore the new CAS BioFinder Discovery Platform™

Move your drug discovery program through each phase quickly with access to life sciences data and a new solution.

Bioelectronics: Merging man and machine

What are the capabilities of new brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink? Learn how bioelectronics are shaping the future of medicine in our latest article.

Advance drug discovery with confidence

Prioritize your drug candidates with our vast catalog of biological sequences, bioactivity data, and more.

Introducing the 2024 CAS Future Leaders

This group of exceptional early-career scientists from around the world will take the next steps in their leadership journeys this August in Columbus, Ohio, and Denver, Colorado.

CAS SCIFINDER DISCOVERY PLATFORM

Accelerate breakthroughs and get discoveries to market faster using best-in-class scientific solutions throughout the innovation journey.

STN IP PROTECTION SUITE

From new users to expert searchers, accelerate your innovation journey with IP insights that save time and money.

CAS CUSTOM SERVICES

Partner with CAS to customize solutions for your unique business and R&D challenges with our content, technology and expertise.

The rise of biologics: Emerging trends and opportunities

Biologics research and production have grown rapidly in the past few decades, with no signs of slowing down. As innovators navigate an increasingly varied landscape of biological drugs designed to target everything from cancer to infectious diseases, many challenges still face those developing these next-generation therapeutics.

Barnes & Thornburg LLP partners with CAS: IP search findings build value at every stage of drug R&D

As a top U.S. business law firm serving the biopharma and life sciences markets, Barnes & Thornburg LLP counts on CAS IP search services and solutions to create holistic patent and regulatory strategies that secure, protect, and monetize client innovations in human therapeutics.

Curated scientific knowledge to power discovery.

High-quality data is the lifeblood of today’s digital R&D pipeline. Every day, our scientists curate, connect, and analyze the valuable data disclosed in scientific publications from around the world to build the CAS Content Collection, covering over 150 years of discoveries.

Our data underpins all CAS Solutions and can be licensed for machine learning or in-house workflow integration. Our scientists also support custom data curation projects through CAS Custom Services.

Latest Insights

Ending Alzheimer's: Emerging trends in biomarkers, gene...

Biomarkers, personalized medicine and gene therapies are fueling research breakthroughs. Discover new treatments targeting genetics and protein buildup to manage this devastating disease.

May 31, 2024

Evolving beauty: The rise of sustainable and natural...

Learn about the shift towards sustainable and natural ingredients in cosmetics, supported by data from the CAS Content Collection™.

May 24, 2024

From sci-fi to reality: brain-computer interfaces and the...

Bioelectronics: Merging man and machine. Explore the latest advancements in brain-computer interfaces, materials, and their potential to revolutionize medicine.

May 17, 2024

Physical Review Research

• Collections
• Editorial Team
• Open Access

Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 – A large hybridization-gap variant of Ce 3 Bi 4 Pt 3

D. m. kirschbaum, x. yan, m. waas, r. svagera, a. prokofiev, b. stöger, g. giester, p. rogl, d.-g. oprea, c. felser, r. valentí, m. g. vergniory, j. custers, s. paschen, and d. a. zocco, phys. rev. research 6 , 023242 – published 4 june 2024.

• No Citing Articles

The family of cubic noncentrosymmetric 3-4-3 compounds has become a fertile ground for the discovery of novel correlated metallic and insulating phases. Here, we report the synthesis of a new heavy fermion compound, Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 . It is an isoelectronic analog of the prototypical Kondo insulator Ce 3 Bi 4 Pt 3 and of the recently discovered Weyl-Kondo semimetal Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 . In contrast to the volume-preserving Pt-Pd substitution, structural and chemical analyses reveal a positive chemical pressure effect in Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 relative to its heavier counterparts. Based on the results of electrical resistivity, Hall effect, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat measurements, we identify an energy gap of 65–70 meV, about eight times larger than that in Ce 3 Bi 4 Pt 3 and about 45 times larger than that of the Kondo-insulating background hosting the Weyl nodes in Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 . We show that this gap as well as other physical properties do not evolve monotonically with increasing atomic number, i.e., in the sequence Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 − Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 − Ce 3 Bi 4 Pt 3 , but instead with increasing partial electronic density of states of the d orbitals at the Fermi energy. This work opens the possibility to investigate the conditions under which topological states develop in this series of strongly correlated 3-4-3 materials.

• Received 26 January 2024
• Accepted 23 April 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.023242

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

• Physical Systems

Authors & Affiliations

• 1 Institute of Solid State Physics, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria
• 2 X-ray Center, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria
• 3 Institute of Mineralogy and Crystallography, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
• 4 Institute of Materials Chemistry, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
• 5 Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
• 6 Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt a.M., Germany
• 7 Donostia International Physics Center, 20018 Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain
• 8 Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Charles University, 121 16 Prague, Czech Republic
• * Corresponding author: [email protected]
• † Corresponding author: [email protected]

Article Text

Vol. 6, Iss. 2 — June - August 2024

Subject Areas

• Condensed Matter Physics
• Strongly Correlated Materials

Authorization Required

Other options.

• Buy Article »
• Find an Institution with the Article »

Download & Share

(a) Photo of a single crystal of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 with indicated crystallographic directions obtained from Laue diffraction. Typical sample length is 1.5 mm. (b) Laue XRD pattern (white spots). The center of the image corresponds to the [-2-1-1] crystallographic direction. (c) Sketch of the unit cell. The polyhedron emphasizes the close environment of a Ce atom. (d) Room-temperature powder XRD pattern of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 (black dots). Vertical bars indicate the positions of the expected diffraction peaks. The difference (blue line) between the measured data and the refinement (red line) shows no signs of impurity phases. (e) Lattice parameter a across the Ce 3 Bi 4 X 3 series ( X = Ni , Pd, Pt). Intermediate Pd-Pt values (white diamonds) taken from Ref. [ 8 ]. The gray shaded line is a guide to the eye.

EDX spectrum corresponding to one point measurement of a polished Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 crystal (inset, top right). Inset: Backscattered SEM images of as-grown (bottom left) and polished (top right) Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 samples. The lighter spots visible on the surface of the as-grown crystal correspond to Pb, and are absent in the polished sample.

(a) Electrical resistivity ρ of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 as a function of temperature T in zero magnetic field, with the electrical current applied along the crystallographic [111] direction. (b) Temperature-dependent Hall coefficient R H . The shaded gray line is a guide to the eye. (c), (d) Arrhenius plots of the resistivity (normalized to 300 K) and Hall coefficient data. The red solid lines are linear fits to the data above 100 K.

(a) Temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility χ of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 , measured with B = 1  T. (b) Inverse magnetic susceptibility χ − 1 ( T ) . The paramagnetic Weiss temperate Θ and the effective magnetic moment μ eff were determined from a Curie-Weiss fit for T > T max χ (red line). (c) Magnetization M vs B at 2 K (black), 10 K (blue), 100 K (green), and 300 K (red). The curves show up and down B sweeps, with no signs of magnetic hysteresis detected. For all cases, B was applied parallel to the crystallographic [11-2] direction.

Specific heat C vs T of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 measured between 2 K and 300 K. The red dashed line is a fit with the Debye model plus an additional Schottky-like electronic contribution derived for Kondo insulators (see main text). The inset shows the low temperature C / T vs T 2 and the fit. The Sommerfeld coefficient ( γ ) is then determined by shifting the fitting line by γ = 6.92 mJ / mol Ce K 2 to match the measured data (blue line).

(a) Electrical resistance R ( T ) normalized to its room temperature value R (300 K) and (b) magnetic susceptibility χ ( T ) of the Ce 3 Bi 4 X 3 series, with X = Ni (black dots), Pd (blue line), Pt (red line), and of a partially substituted Ni-Pd single crystal (19% Ni, white triangles). The data for Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 and Ce 3 Bi 4 Pt 3 were taken from Refs. [ 8 ] and [ 10 ].

Comparison of characteristic parameters for the Ce 3 Bi 4 X 3 series ( X = Ni, Pd, Pt). Shaded grey areas are guides to the eyes. (a)  i R R R values (from Fig.  6 ) and temperature scales T K , Δ / k B , and T max χ . For Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 , T max χ is taken from Fig.  4 , T K is calculated from T max χ (see Sec.  3 ), and Δ / k B is obtained from the fits in Figs.   3 . Values for the Pd and Pt compounds taken from Ref. [ 8 ]. (b) Kondo energy gap Δ / k B as a function of the d -electron density of states ( d  DOS) at the Fermi level (from DFT calculations, see Figs.  10 and 11 in Appendix D).

Crystal structure of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 , with atoms displayed as ellipsoids representing their anisotropic atomic displacement parameters (ADPs). Derived from the refinement (including Ni deficiency in the structure) of single crystal XRD data corresponding to a highly stoichiometric sample (see Table  2 ).

(a) Lattice parameter a vs Ni content of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 obtained from room-temperature powder XRD and EDX measurements, respectively, of selected samples from different growth batches (labeled by numbers). Data in the gray-shaded area correspond to the most stoichiometric samples (close to three Ni atoms per formula unit), with an average value of a = 9.7715 ( 9 ) Å. (b) Magnetic susceptibility χ vs T of Ce 3 Bi 4 Ni 3 single crystals from different batches ( B ∥ [11-2] = 1 T). Broad maxima at T max χ are marked with arrows. (c)  T max χ (left scale) and susceptibility magnitude at T max χ (right scale) obtained from (b) vs lattice parameter from (a).

Electronic structure of Ce 3 Bi 4 X 3 ( X = Ni, Pd, Pt), with the 4 f orbitals of Ce treated as corelike. The experimentally determined structure data were used as input. The Fermi energy ɛ F is set to zero.

Total and d -electron density of states ( d  DOS) of Ce 3 Bi 4 X 3 ( X = Ni, Pd, Pt), obtained from the band structure calculations displayed in Fig.  10 . The Fermi energy is set to zero (vertical line).

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

• Forgot your username/password?
• Create an account

Article Lookup

Paste a citation or doi, enter a citation.

Plant biomarkers help determine exposure to chlorine gas used as a chemical weapon

6 June 2024

The use of chlorine gas near Ypres in World War I (April 1915) has started an era of using poisonous gases for war purposes which, in violation of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, continues to date. Unfortunately, even after more than a century of scientific progress, it is still difficult to unambiguously verify the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon. For one thing, it has proven problematic to differentiate from the application of less harmful chlorinating agents such as household bleach.

In their paper in Forensic Science International, De Bruin - Hoegée and coworkers at the van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (University of Amsterdam) and TNO Defence, Safety and Security, (Rijswijk, the Netherlands) now present a method of detecting the use of chlorine gas in warfare even months after exposure. They resorted to common vegetation such as green spire ( Euonymus japonicus ), stinging nettle ( Urtica dioica),  and feathergrass ( Stipa tenuifolia ) and investigated if and how these could carry telltale signs of chlorine gas exposure.

Using high resolution mass spectrometric analysis and machine learning techniques, the researchers were able to identify biomarkers that reveal the use of chlorine gas. These set of chlorinated plant molecules enabled differentiation from exposure to other chlorinating agents (household bleach, pool bleach, and concentrated sodium hypochlorite). Furthermore, it turned out that they could be identified in plants even months after exposure.

Mirjam de Bruin-Hoegée performed the research as part of her PhD study under supervision of Arian van Asten, professor of Forensic Analytical Chemistry and On Scene Chemical Analysis at the University of Amsterdam and one of the directors of the Amsterdam Center for Forensic Science and Medicine (CLHC). She will defend her thesis on 12 June at the University of Amsterdam. The work was partially funded by the European Union, through a research contract awarded by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in support of the Plant Biomarker Challenge. It is also part of the Forensic Attribution for CWA INtelliGence (FACING) project, a collaboration between the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) of the University of Amsterdam and TNO Defence, Safety & Security. The FACING project is financed by the DO-AIO fund of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. 

Paper abstract

Since its first employment in World War I, chlorine gas has often been used as chemical warfare agent. Unfortunately, after suspected release, it is difficult to prove the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon and unambiguous verification is still challenging. Furthermore, similar evidence can be found for exposure to chlorine gas and other, less harmful chlorinating agents. Therefore, the current study aims to use untargeted high resolution mass spectrometric analysis of chlorinated biomarkers together with machine learning techniques to be able to differentiate between exposure of plants to various chlorinating agents. Green spire ( Euonymus japonicus ), stinging nettle ( Urtica dioica),  and feathergrass ( Stipa tenuifolia ) were exposed to 1000 and 7500 ppm chlorine gas and household bleach, pool bleach, and concentrated sodium hypochlorite. After sample preparation and digestion, the samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS/MS) and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). More than 150 chlorinated compounds including plant fatty acids, proteins, and DNA adducts were tentatively identified. Principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) showed clear discrimination between chlorine gas and bleach exposure and grouping of the samples according to chlorine concentration and type of bleach. The identity of a set of novel biomarkers was confirmed using commercially available or synthetic reference standards. Chlorodopamine, dichlorodopamine, and trichlorodopamine were identified as specific markers for chlorine gas exposure. Fenclonine (Cl-Phe), 3-chlorotyrosine (Cl-Tyr), 3,5-dichlorotyrosine (di-Cl-Tyr), and 5-chlorocytosine (Cl-Cyt) were more abundantly present in plants after chlorine contact. In contrast, the DNA adduct 2-amino-6-chloropurine (Cl-Ade) was identified in both types of samples at a similar level. None of these chlorinated biomarkers were observed in untreated samples. The DNA adducts Cl-Cyt and Cl-Ade could clearly be identified even three months after the actual exposure. This study demonstrates the feasibility of forensic biomarker profiling in plants to distinguish between exposure to chlorine gas and bleach.

Paper details

Mirjam de Bruin-Hoegée, Marcel J. van der Schans, Jan P. Langenberg, Arian C. van Asten: Biomarker profiling in plants to distinguish between exposure to chlorine gas and bleach using LC-HRMS/MS and chemometrics . Forensic Science International, Volume 358, 2024, 112022, ISSN 0379-0738. DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2024.112022

Thesis details

J.M. de Bruin-Hoegée: Revealing the origin of chemical weapons Supervisors: A.C. van Asten, P.J. Schoenmakers Co-supervisors D. Noort, M.J. van der Schans DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10723922 or download the PDF at the UvA repository

• New forensic research reveals chemical weapons 'fingerprint'
• Finding evidence in plants for the use of chemical weapons
• Website Mirjam de Bruin - Hoegée: forensicscientist.nl

Cookie Consent

The UvA uses cookies to measure, optimise, and ensure the proper functioning of the website. Cookies are also placed in order to display third-party content and for marketing purposes. Click 'Accept' to agree to the placement of all cookies; if you only want to accept functional and analytical cookies, select ‘Decline’. You can change your preferences at any time by clicking on 'Cookie settings' at the bottom of each page. Also read the UvA Privacy statement .