CHEM0350 Organic Chemistry Lab

As you learned while completing the chemical literature assignment, Reaxys extracts property data from journal articles and patents, and displays that information in tables.

These tables are used as a guide to locate literature that provides the information that you need.  The full text should always be consulted when citing data or text.

In this course, you should select the most current (recent) article that provides the property information you need, measured under conditions that approximate those in your own experiment, and is available electronically (full text) through our library.  You do not need to read the article, but you must confirm that we have electronic access to the full text.  For this experiment, do not select an article that is available in print in the library.

Structure Search in Reaxys

Reaxys can be accessed from the Electronic Resources box in this guide.  Remember, you must first authenticate with your Brown username and password, and then enter your Reaxys username and password.

Select Substances, Names, Formulas on the Reaxys homepage.  Click in the box to open MarvinSketch, the default structure editor in Reaxys.  MarvinSketch is a Java-based structure editor; you can also choose one of the three non-Java-based structure editors by clicking Structure Editor.

Choosing an Article

Once you have found your substance, examine the results under the appropriate heading in the Available Data column of the Reaxys table: Physical Data > Boiling Point or Refractive Index.

For this experiment, select the article with the most recent year of publication that has the property data that you need, measured under the given experimental conditions (see below), and is available electronically (full text) through our library.  You do not need to read the article, but you must confirm that we have electronic access to the full text.  For this experiment, do not select an article that is only available in print in the library. 

One article does not have to be used for both boiling point and refractive index for each compound.

Patents do not have a digital object identifier (DOI) and are not citable sources for this course.

Experimental Conditions for Boiling Point

Pressure: 760 torr or 759.xxx torr, where x represents a number.

If the pressure cell is blank in the Reaxys table, then assume atmospheric (room) pressure (760 torr).

Enter all numbers exactly as they appear in the Reaxys table.

Experimental Conditions for Refractive Index (RI)

Wavelength: 589 nm; do NOT assume blank cell for wavelength is 589 nm.

Temperature: 25°C or 24.xx°C, where x represents a number; if NO articles meet the aforementioned criteria (25°C, 24.xx°C) then use 20°C. 

Do NOT use articles where temperature is a range, e.g. 20 - 25°C, or refractive index is a range.

Ignore Comment Box column in Reaxys table for RI. 

Literature values for RI must equal or exceed the number of significant figures in experimentally measured RI.

Enter all numbers exactly as they appear in the Reaxys table.

Accessing the Full Text of an Article

Click the yellow 'Find it!' button to see if the full text of the article is available through our library.  This will either take you directly to the article or open a library page called Interlibrary Loan.  If you are brought directly to the article or there is a link under Available online on the Interlibrary Loan page, then full text is available electronically through our library.

Be sure to note the DOI of the article, which is available in one or more of the following places: the Interlibrary Loan page; the journal's page for the article, below the title and authors or in an 'About this Article' section; the PDF of the article.

Citing an Article

See the Citing the Literature page in this guide for details on how to cite resources for this course.

Note, the citation information in Reaxys may be incomplete and/or inaccurate.  Consult the journal's page or the article itself for complete and accurate information.