Chemical database facts for kids
A chemical database is like a giant digital library for information about chemicals. It's a special database designed to store all sorts of facts about chemical and crystal structures, how chemicals react, and even their physical properties like how much heat they can hold.
Contents
What are Chemical Structures?
Chemical structures show how atoms are connected in a molecule. Imagine drawing a molecule on paper with lines showing the bonds between atoms. Computers can't "see" these drawings directly. So, chemical databases store this information in a special way that computers can understand.
How Computers Store Structures
For small molecules, databases often list each atom and how it connects to others. Think of it like a recipe listing ingredients and how they are mixed. For very large molecules, like proteins, databases store information about their smaller building blocks, called amino acids, and the order they are linked together.
Big Chemical Databases
Some chemical databases are huge! They can store information about millions of different molecules. This means they need a lot of computer memory, sometimes even terabytes, which is like thousands of gigabytes!
Chemical Literature Databases
These databases connect chemical structures or their properties to scientific papers or patents. This helps scientists find out what research has already been done on a specific chemical. Examples include STN, Scifinder, and Reaxys.
Crystallography Databases
Crystallography is the study of how atoms are arranged in crystals. Crystallography databases store data from X-ray crystal structures. This data helps scientists understand the exact 3D shape of molecules. Some well-known examples are the Protein Data Bank and the Cambridge Structural Database.
NMR Spectra Databases
NMR spectroscopy is a technique used to figure out the structure of molecules. NMR spectra databases help scientists match the information from an NMR experiment to a known chemical structure. They can also include data from other methods like FTIR and mass spectrometry, which are also used to identify and understand chemicals.
Chemical Reaction Databases
Most chemical databases focus on stable molecules. But some special databases store information about chemical reaction mechanisms. These databases contain details about the starting chemicals (called educts), the new chemicals formed (products), and even temporary molecules that appear during a reaction. This helps scientists understand how chemical changes happen.
Thermophysical Data
Thermophysical data describes how chemicals behave when heated or cooled, or how they interact with each other. This information is super important for engineers and scientists who design chemical processes.
Types of Thermophysical Data
- Phase Equilibria: This tells us how substances change between solid, liquid, and gas forms. For example, it includes information about vapor–liquid equilibrium (how much liquid turns into gas at a certain temperature) or the solubility of gases in liquids.
- Caloric Data: This is about how much heat a substance can hold or release. It includes things like heat capacity (how much energy is needed to raise a substance's temperature) and the heat of formation or combustion (how much heat is released when a substance is formed or burned).
- Transport Properties: These describe how substances move or transfer energy. Examples include viscosity (how thick or sticky a liquid is) and thermal conductivity (how well a substance conducts heat).
See also
- In Spanish: Base de datos química para niños
