chemistry

Reaxys

Reaxys is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Reaxys rather than just read about it. In short: Reaxys is a web-based tool for the retrieval of information about chemical compounds and data from published literature, including journals and patents. The information includes chemical compounds, chemical reactions, chemical properties, related bibliographic data, substance data with synthesis planning information, as well as experimental procedures from selected journals and patents.

Key takeaways

Reaxys belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Reaxys to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Reaxys from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Reaxys is a web-based tool for the retrieval of information about chemical compounds and data from published literature, including journals and patents. The information includes chemical compounds, chemical reactions, chemical properties, related bibliographic data, substance data with synthesis planning information, as well as experimental procedures from selected journals and patents. It is licensed by Elsevier. Reaxys was launched in 2009 as the successor to the CrossFire databases. It was developed to provide research chemists with access to current and historical, relevant, organic, inorganic and organometallic chemistry information, from reliable sources via an easy-to-use interface.

Scope and access One of the primary goals of Reaxys is to provide research chemists with access to experimentally measured data – reactions, physical, chemical or pharmacological – in one universal and factual platform. Content covers organic, medicinal, synthetic, agro, fine, catalyst, inorganic and process chemistry and provides information on structures, reactions, and citations. Additional features include a synthesis planner and access to commercial availability information. There have been regular releases and enhancements to Reaxys since it was first launched, including similarity searching. Reaxys provides links to Scopus for all matching articles and interoperability with ScienceDirect. Access to the database is subject to an annual license agreement.

Core data The content covers more than 200 years of chemistry and has been abstracted from several thousands of journal titles, books and patents. Today the data is drawn from selected journals (400 titles) and chemistry patents, and the excerption process for each reaction or substance data included needs to meet three conditions:

It has a chemical structure It is supported by an experimental fact (property, preparation, reaction) It has a credible citation Journals covered include Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis, Journal of American Chemical Society, Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, Synlett and Tetrahedron. Patents in Reaxys come from the International Patent Classes:

C07 Organic Chemistry A61K and secondary IPC C07 [Medicinal, Dental, Cosmetic Preparations] A01N C09B Dyes

Comparison with other chemical databases Only a very limited number of studies compared Reaxys with other databases, that provide chemical search functionality, such as SciFinder, ChEMBL, PubChem and Questel-Orbit. For example, the most comprehensive study published in 2020 by researchers from the University of Sydney concluded, that "Reaxys is definitely the first choice, due to both its wealth of data and its precise search facilities...but for less common data and spectra SciFinder contains often more information than Reaxys. PubChem should also be included, not only because of its size and accessibility... Reaxys has well over 100 times the number of experimental property data points <as SciFinder>... In the case of Reaxys and SciFinder, the natural language query algorithms in Reaxys are displayable, but in SciFinder the algorithms are proprietary and not available."

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Reaxys

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Reaxys claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Reaxys before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Reaxys ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Reaxys

In research: Reaxys appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Reaxys in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Reaxys is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Chemical databases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Reaxys outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Reaxys in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Reaxys means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Reaxys out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Reaxys in simple terms?

Why does Reaxys matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Reaxys?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Reaxys.