CAS Launches Free Web-Based Resource "Common Chemistry" for General Public

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society and the most comprehensive and authoritative source of chemical information, has launched a new, free, web-based resource called Common Chemistry^TM.

This resource is helpful to non-chemists and others who might know either a chemical name or a CAS Registry Number of a common everyday chemical and want to pair both pieces of information.

Common Chemistry contains approximately 7800 chemicals of widespread and general interest, as well as all 118 elements from the periodic table. With the exception of some of the elements, all other substances in this collection were deemed of widespread interest by having been cited 1000 or more times in the CAS databases. Examples of substances in Common Chemistry include widely recognizable ones such as caffeine, benzoyl peroxide (acne treatment), and sodium chloride (table salt).

"Anyone can easily search by CAS Registry Number or chemical name and confirm the substance details, such as the CAS Registry Number, chemical names or synonyms, molecular formula, and a chemical structure," said Christine McCue, CAS Vice President, Marketing. "Visitors also have the ability to bookmark the page using social media tools, such as Delicious and Digg."

While not intended to be a comprehensive CAS Registry Number (CAS RN) lookup service, Common Chemistry does provide access to information on chemicals of general interest. The CAS Registry Number is recognized throughout the world as the most commonly used, unique identifier of chemical substances. The full CAS REGISTRY^SM database contains more than 46 million organic and inorganic substances. Research discovery and patent tools such as SciFinder and STN allow users to search the entire database.