CAS Common Chemistry in 2021: Expanding Access to Trusted Chemical Information for the Scientific Community
Andrea Jacobs, Dustin L. Williams, Katherine Hickey, Nathan Patrick, Antony Williams, Stuart Chalk, Leah McEwen, Egon Willighagen, Martin A. Walker, Evan Bolton, Gabriel Sinclair, Adam Sanford
Abstract
CAS Common Chemistry (https://commonchemistry.cas.org/) is an open web resource that provides access to reliable chemical substance information for the scientific community. Having served millions of visitors since its creation in 2009, the resource was extensively updated in 2021 with significant enhancements. The underlying dataset was expanded from 8000 to 500,000 chemical substances and includes additional associated information, such as basic properties and computer-readable chemical structure information. New use cases are supported with enhanced search capabilities and an integrated application programming interface. Reusable licensing of the content is provided through a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) license allowing other public resources to integrate the data into their systems. This paper provides an overview of the enhancements to data and functionality, discusses the benefits of the contribution to the chemistry community, and summarizes recent progress in leveraging this resource to strengthen other information sources.