data

Machine-readable Data and The International Year of the Periodic Table 2019

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2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table. The United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO have proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (#IYPT2019). There are many activities, projects, and celebrations planned this year promoting the Periodic Table of Elements listed on the IYPT2019 website:

https://www.iypt2019.org/

You may also be interested in reading some of our print and electronic books related to the Periodic Table: Scout Search for TI(periodic table).

At Rodgers Library, we have been interested in interacting with machine-readable periodic table data. As such, we were excited to learn that the U.S. National Library of Medicine recently released an interactive PubChem Periodic Table of Elements that allows both human and machine access to the underlying data. For example, here is a variety of associated element property data in machine-readable JSON format from the PubChem Periodic Table of Elements:

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug/periodictable/JSON

JSON data can be processed using scientific software and/or programming languages. We have created an example tutorial using MATLAB code. In the tutorial, we download the PubChem machine-readable periodic table JSON data and assemble a table of element names and corresponding International Chemical Identifiers (InChIs). We then create plots of Melting Point/Boiling Point vs. Atomic Number. Check out the MATLAB Live Notebook below, you are free to use and adapt the code as desired:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/71183-pubchem-machine-readable-periodic-table-data-demo

Plot of Temperature (Celsius) of Melting/Boiling Point versus Atomic Number.
Plot of Temperature (Celsius) of Melting/Boiling Point versus Atomic Number.

Enjoy, and have fun with the Periodic Table of the Elements!

Chemical & Engineering Data and Mathematical Functions available from NIST

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides public access to a multitude of compiled chemical and engineering experimental and computational data (https://www.nist.gov/data). Much of the data available from NIST is critically evaluated and extracted from the primary literature; however, there is also unique data available, collected at NIST facilities. For example, NIST obtained the Radionuclide Half-Life Measurements.

To browse a full list of these specialized NIST data resources, we recommend using the NIST Data Gateway: https://srdata.nist.gov/gateway/gateway?dblist=0.

Within the NIST Data Gateway, you will see a full list of data available from NIST, such as the Atomic Spectra Database, Chemistry WebBook, Ionic Liquids Database, and Property Data Summaries for Advanced Materials. There are also useful Mathematics resources like the NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions and Guide to Available Mathematical Software. These mathematics resources contain an index of mathematical functions along with an index of software than can compute mathematical functions.

So, check out the NIST Data Gateway, and let us know if you need help navigating any of the NIST resources!