Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) is a division of the American Chemical Society which produces the Chemical Abstracts, an index of the scientific literature in chemistry and related fields. Chemical Abstracts have been published since 1907. CAS also maintains the CAS registry, a comprehensive database of chemical substances. Each substance in this database receives a CAS registry number, and these numbers are now commonly used to uniquely identify chemical substances. Substances also receive unique CA index names , which are normally constructed using rigid nomenclature rules. In an effort to facilitate searching for related compounds, the most important functional groups of a substance are named first, followed by their modifications; there are also some other differences between CA index names and IUPAC names.

The various database products created by CAS are proprietary and are commonly sold to businesses and university libraries. CAS is located in Columbus, Ohio.

External link

• CAS home page