ResearchGuides: Free & Open Access Resources: Chemical and Material Information Sources

Searching for Information on Chemical and Materials

Here are some free databases if you're looking for information about chemicals or materials, including crystal structures, spectra, and physical properties. Some may include references for associated journal articles which may or may not be freely available.

CAS Common Chemistry
Open community resource of chemical information on ~500,000 compounds from the CAS Registry, including common and frequently regulated chemicals, and those relevant to high school and undergraduate chemistry classes.
MatWeb
Properties database with data sheets for 180,000+ engineering materials: metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, and more. Free to search and use, with an option to register for added functionality.
Access Structures
Free service to search for crystal structures, from the Cambridge Structural Database and Inorganic Crystal Structure Database. You can search by compound name, number or bibliographic information (author, etc.). The other search options are paywalled.
The Materials Project
Freely available database of thousands of inorganic compounds, with properties and downloadable crystal structure files.
Crystallography Open Database
Open access collection of crystal structures from organics, organometallics, inorganics, and minerals - +390,000 entries. Structures can be viewed in JSmol and downloaded (.cif).
NIST Data Gateway
Large collection of property databases from National Institute of Standards & Technology. Search by keyword, property or substance across the NIST databases, including the NIST Chemistry Webbook.
Many of the NIST databases are free, but you may get some results from the fee-based databases as well.
BRENDA - Comprehensive Enzyme Information System
Main collection of enzyme functional data available to the scientific community
Organic Syntheses
Annual collection of "detailed, reliable, and carefully checked procedures" for synthesizing organic compounds. Each detailed procedure was repeated and "carefully checked" for reproducibility. Articles include notes, photographs, literature references, and safety information. Articles can be searched by text/author, and structure or substructure.
Chemical Safety Library
Crowd sourced data content containing hazardous reactions that can be used to alert scientists to potential dangerous experiments. From the Pistoia Alliance, with open access provided by CAS.
ChEMBL
Curated database of 2.3+ million bioactive compounds with drug-like properties. Includes activities, target predictions, and literature references.
SpectraBase
Online spectra library from Wiley, with millions of spectra (IR, Mass, NMR, UV-Vis, Raman). Free database of hundreds of thousands of spectra, including NMR, IR (including ATR-IR), Raman, UV-Vis, and Mass.
- Free with registration, but limited to 10 searches every 30 days.
Spectral Database for Organic Compounds (SDBS)
Searchable database of spectra for 34,600 organic compounds: IR, H1-NMR, C-13 NMR, Mass, Raman, and ESR.