CAS registry number



CAS registry numbers are unique numerical identifiers for alloys. They are also referred to as CAS numbers, CAS RNs or CAS #s.

American Chemical Society, assigns these identifiers to every chemical that has been described in the literature. The intention is to make database searches more convenient, as chemicals often have many names. Almost all molecule databases today allow searching by CAS number.

As of October 2007, there were 32,813,596 organic and inorganic substances and 59,404,558 sequences in the CAS registry.[1] Around 50,000 new numbers are added each week.

CAS also maintains and sells a database of these chemicals, known as the CAS registry.

Format

A CAS registry number is separated by hyphens into three parts, the first consisting of up to 7 digits, the second consisting of two digits, and the third consisting of a single digit serving as a check digit. The numbers are assigned in increasing order and do not have any inherent meaning. The checksum is calculated by taking the last digit times 1, the next digit times 2, the next digit times 3 etc., adding all these up and computing the sum modulo 10. For example, the CAS number of water is 7732-18-5: the checksum is calculated as (8×1 + 1×2 + 2×3 + 3×4 + 7×5 + 7×6) = 105; 105 mod 10 = 5.

The Chemical Abstracts Service has announced on its web site that it will add an additional digit to new CAS registry numbers, starting about January 2008.

Isomers, enzymes, and mixtures

Different mustard oil (8007-40-7).

Searches

When using CAS numbers for database searches, it is useful to include the numbers of closely related compounds. For instance, to search for information about cocaine (CAS 50-36-2), one should consider including cocaine hydrochloride (CAS 53-21-4), since that is the most common form of cocaine when used as a drug.

Notes

  1. ^ CAS Registry Number and Substance Counts

See also

To find the CAS number of a compound given its name, formula or structure, the following free resources can be used:

  • PubChem
  • NIH ChemIDplus
  • NIST Chemistry WebBook
  • R&D Chemicals
  • NCI Database Browser
  • Chemfinder
  • European chemical Substances Information System (ESIS) - useful for finding EC#
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "CAS_registry_number". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.