Reaxys is an electronic resource that can be used to find references for reactions and properties for chemical compounds. The Reaxys interface originally pulled information from three databases – Beilstein for organic compounds, Gmelin for inorganic compounds and complexes, and the Patent Chemistry database. It now incorporates new data from journals and patents worldwide. You can search Reaxys for references and information on:  

• Chemical reactions
• Organic and inorganic substances
• Measured substance property data (including identification, physical, spectroscopic, bioactivity and ecotoxicological data)

Also included is a synthesis planner that displays multi-step reaction plans with the ability to include alternate options for a synthesis route.

Why use Reaxys and not just Scifinder?

Reaxys has more properties and reactions than Scifinder plus a ton of biological activity data. Scifinder is superior for text-based searching.

Make sure you compare the data from both so you don't waste your time on a reaction that is already published!

Three ways you can search Reaxys:

1. Text, Authors and More Search for articles and patents by topic, author, journal citation or patent number.
2. Substances and Properties Search for particular substances by entering identification or property data, or by drawing the chemical structure or substructure.
3. Reactions Search for information on reactions by entering specific reaction data or by using the structure drawing software.

Full text articles: Since University of Toronto has online subscriptions to most the the key journals , you can often link directly from Reaxys to the full text. However we do not subscribe electronically to everything, so if the link does not work, search the University of Toronto Libraries catalogue for the journal name to determine if we might get the journal online via another service or if we have it in print.

For more info and help on specific aspects of Reaxys, the Reaxys Support Center contains helpful information. It contains FAQs, user guides, and video tutorials to help you get the best results from your searches.

Did you know you can save your search results and get alerts periodically with any new results? This can help you stay up to date on the most recent developments in your field of interest. Read this document from Reaxys to learn how to set up alerts: