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CHEM2243: Honors Organic Chemistry

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5. Search SciFinder

Library resources and database training for CHEM 2243: Honors Organic Chemistry

Search for Substances

Use the Home Screen to quickly characterize a substance

Search for butyl benzoate from the SciFinder home screen and find the best record for this substance. What are some other names used in scientific literature for this substance? What types of spectra are listed for this compound?

Practice using advanced search fields and filters

Return to the SciFinder home screen and click the Advanced Search button SciFinder Advanced Search button . Search in Molecular Formula for C11H14O2.

SciFinder arranges elements in a formula by Hill system order. For organic molecules the sequence is C, H, then all other elements in alphabetical order.

Click Return to Advanced Search and Add an Advanced Search Field to find substances with the molecular formula C11H14O2 that are solids at room temperature (20°C). Filter Results to see how many of these are compounds (not mixtures of multiple components) with anti-inflammatory activity.

Find literature about substances

Search for the substance geosmin. Retrieve all the references. Filter Results and Analyze Results—use both approaches—to find review articles (in Document Type) about this substance in drinking water(s) (as a Concept).

You will retrieve more results if you search for geosmin in "References," rather than in "Substances." Why does this happen?

Search Chemical Structures

Practice using CAS Draw

Return to the SciFinder home screen and click the Draw button SciFinder Draw button. "Draw" a substance by entering CAS Registry Number 19700-21-1. Click an empty part of the screen to deselect the full drawing. Click the Single Bond button and remove stereochemistry from the single bonds. Use the Select a Variable to Draw button (X) to replace the oxygen with Any atom except C or H. Click OK, search, and examine the As Drawn results. Select Substructure to find substances incorporating the original structure. Filter Results to substances with one component that have anti-inflammatory activity. How many of them contain metals? How many are small molecules, with molecular weight ≤ 1000?

Why do "As Drawn" structure search results include multiple substances?

By default, an "exact" structure search also retrieves:

  • stereoisomers
  • tautomers (including keto-enol)
  • zwitterions
  • charged compounds
  • radicals or radical ions
  • isotopes
  • mixtures and salts in which the structure appears
  • coordination compounds
  • polymers in which the structure is a monomer

Find Syntheses

Return to the SciFinder home screen. Search for the substance butyl benzoate and select Reactions. Filter Results to single-step, high-yield reactions for synthesizing this product—using starting materials you can buy on the open market and "green" or environmentally friendly techniques—that were published in scholarly journals.

Search Literature & Citations

Examine a SciFinder entry for a review article

Return to the SciFinder home screen, click Advanced Search, and select References. Find Allison Young's use 2015 article about strain in colloidal metal nanoparticle catalysts. Select the reference and click CAS Concepts to find search terms you can use to find more articles on this topic. Click Cited Documents to see the 155 items cited in this review article. Scroll up and click the Get Citations for this Reference button SciFInder Get Citations for this Reference button to see how many articles within the SciFinder universe refer to (cite) this work.