Development of a Global Portal to Information on Chemical Substances (eChemPortal)
Tips & tricks for searching information with eChemPortal
Printing and saving search results
Development of a Global Portal to Information on Chemical Substances (eChemPortal)
eChemPortal provides free public access to information on chemical properties and direct links to collections of information prepared for government chemical review programmes at national, regional, and international levels. eChemPortal also makes available national/regional classification results according to national / regional hazard classification schemes or according to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS).
The eChemPortal is an effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in collaboration with the European Commission, the United States, Canada, Japan, the International Council of Chemical Associations, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee, the World Health Organization's International Program on Chemical Safety, the United Nations Environment Programme on Chemicals and environmental non-governmental organisations.
eChemPortal is a significant step towards achieving long-standing international commitments to identify and make information on chemical properties publicly available.
In June 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil addressed the environmentally sound management of toxic chemicals [Chapter 19], covering the "information exchange on toxic chemicals and chemical risks…" [ Paragraph 4c].
In September 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development encouraged the "development of coherent and integrated information on chemicals…" [Paragraph 23f].
The Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) at Forum IV in Bangkok in November 2003 adopted a priority for action on improving the availability of hazard data on chemicals and invited the OECD, among others, to undertake certain tasks in this regard. The OECD initiated an activity to develop a globally accessible data repository for hazard data, assessments and other information to assist countries and others with hazard identification and national priority setting on existing chemicals. The main objectives of eChemPortal are:
1) To make this information on existing
chemicals publicly available and free of charge.
2) To enable quick and efficient use of this
information.
3) To enable efficient exchange of
this information.
Though the eChemPortal web site exists only in English, eChemPortal recognises chemical names or synonyms in several languages.
Tips & tricks for searching information with eChemPortal
As indicated on the home page, to access data for a specific substance, search "by CAS number" is recommended. Nevertheless, eChemPortal allows the user to search by chemical names and synonyms in several languages and even trade names (if available among in the list of synonyms). Please note that the main chemical name used by the Portal is usually the CAS Registry Name. Also, the search engine of eChemPortal permits searches of partial names and combinations of partial names. Below, a number of tips and tricks are outlined for an efficient use of the search facilities of eChemPortal. Please note that the number of chemicals referenced in eChemPortal is limited to those chemicals for which information exists in the participating databases. If you search for a chemical for which no information exists in the participating databases, you will receive the message "No Chemical Found".
Full name searches
Users can enter the full name of a chemical e.g. "Glutaric acid" and the search engine will retrieve the link for the entries of "Glutaric acid". The search engine will also retrieve other names containing the exact text "Glutaric acid", for example "Glutaric acid, ammonium salt" or "Glutaric acid, diisobutyl ester". Please note that this search is not case sensitive, i.e. the search string "glutaric acid" will also retrieve "Glutaric acid".
As indicated above, eChemPortal also recognises chemical names or synonyms in several languages. For example searching for the German or French name of "Glutaric acid" i.e. "Glutarsäure" resp. "acide glutarique" will retrieve the link for the entries of "Glutaric acid". Searching for the Japanese name of "Carbon tetrachloride" i.e. "四塩化炭素" will retrieve the link for the entries of "Carbon tetrachloride".
Please note that the length of the search string is limited to 36 characters and that you cannot use search strings containing the following characters: " ' , .
Partial name searches
In case you only have an incomplete name or want to find several substances which share parts of a name, you can enter partial names and logical operators.
The character "*" is used as a wildcard. For example the search string "*tert-butylphenol*" will retrieve all chemicals that have a name or synomym containing the characters "tert-butylphenol", e.g. "2,2'-Methylenebis(4-methyl-6-tert-butylphenol)monoacrylate", "2,4,6-tri-tert-butylphenol", "2,4-di-tert-butylphenol" etc. Or the search string "*tert-butylphenol" will retrieve all chemicals that have a name or synomym finishing with the characters "tert-butylphenol" e.g. "2,4,6-tri-tert-butylphenol", "2,4-di-tert-butylphenol", "2,6-di-tert-butylphenol" etc.
Furthermore the space character " " is used by the search engine as a logical AND operator by default. For example the search string "*tert-butyl* *methylbenzene*" will find names and synonyms containing both those search strings e.g. "1,3-Di-tert-butyl-2-hydroxy-5-methylbenzene", "1-tert-butyl-3,5-dimethylbenzene", "1-tert-butyl-4-methylbenzene", etc.
Printing and saving search results
You can print your search results by using the print functions of your browser. (In Microsoft Internet Explorer: On Search Results page, in the tool bar select "File" > "Print preview". On the Print Preview page select "Print".) eChemPortal creates a friendly print format. You can further improve the printout by using the page setup and print functions of your browser.
You can also save your search results by using the SAVE functions of your browser. Please make sure to save the results as a "web archive", so as to preserve all the links. You can also copy the results and paste them into a word-processing software. (Keep the text defined as Unicode.)