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Drexel Library

Chemical and Biological Engineering

This course guide includes useful resources to assist students to find relevant information needed for their research, design projects, and assignments.

Searching for Chemicals by Structure and Reaction

You can perform searches by structure, by a portion of the structure (called a substructure), or by a reaction scheme in many of Penn's chemical science resources.  Here are a few of the most comprehensive.

Commercial Availability Sources

Commercial availability can be tricky.  It is generally most efficient to search an aggregate source that contains availability through multiple suppliers.  Depending on the supplier, however, the aggregators may not include information like quantity or price.  In a case like that, you will have to go to the individual suppliers' Web sites for the missing information.

Sources for Physical and Chemical Properties

Handbooks can be a quick method of finding physical properties, especially if you wish to find the same property for a number of different substances.  Bear in mind that each handbook has two scopes: a scope of substances and a scope of properties, and that the two need to intersect for you to find the information you need.  Not all properties covered are available for all substances!
 

Using DragonSearch, and using query (Chemical Properties) AND (Handbook* or Encyclopedia*) to find either print online books on chemical properties:

See:  (Chemical Properties) AND (Handbook* or Encyclopedia*)