American Chemical Nomenclature

Table I. Active American Chemical Nomenclature Committees...

Highlights in American chemical nomenclature activity have been (1) the adoption in 1915 of systematic naming, with inverted organic entries, for the indexing of chemical compounds by Chemical Abstracts, (2) the publication in 1940 of The Ring Index by Austin M. Patterson and Leonard T. Capell (this activity was sponsored jointly by the National Research Council and the American Chemical Society), and (3) the publication in 1945 by Chemical Abstracts of The Naming and Indexing of Chemical Compounds by Chemical Abstracts. The last two are very useful publications. 

American chemical nomenclature, like that used in Great Britain, is based on the lUPAC rules. Essentially then the names are the same in the two countries but differences occasionally arise where the lUPAC rules permit alternatives, and minor differences occur with great frequency where conventions are not governed by lUPAC rules. 

Nomenclature of Organic Compounds Principles and Practice, 2nd Ed., R.B. Fox, W.H. Powell (Eds.), American Chemical Society, Washington, DC/ Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 2001. 

In the United States, the Committee on Nomenclature of the American Chemical Society is the clearinghouse for nomenclature recommendations and adoptions, aided by various divisional nomenclature committees of the Society. Close Faison is maintained with the various nomenclature bodies of lUPAC. Progress is being made not only in improved nomenclature, but also in the extension of nomenclature recommendations to newly developing areas of chemistry. 

In 1967, the Polymer Nomenclature Committee of the American Chemical Society pubHshed proposals for naming linear polymers on the basis of their chemical stmcture (97), which were then introduced into Chemical Abstracts (CA) Indexes and pubHshed in their final form in 1968 (98). 

B. P. Block, W. H. PoweU, and W. C. EemeHus, Inorganic Chemical Nomenclature. Principles andPractices, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1990. 

J. B. Casey, W. J. Evans, W. H. PoweU, and T. E. Sloan, "A Stmctural Definitive Descriptor and Numbering System for Cluster Compound Nomenclature," Chemical Abstract Service, presented at the 198th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Miami Beach, FI., Sept. 1989. 

American Chemical Society Committee for Carbohydrate Nomenclature D. Horton (Chairman), L. Anderson, D.C. Baker, H.H. Baer, J.N. BeMiller, B. Bossenbroek, R. W. Jeanloz, K.L. Loening, W. A. Szarek, R.S. Tipson, W.J. Whelan, R.L. Whistler. 

Not all problems were solved, however, and different usages were encountered on the two sides of the Atlantic. A joint British-American committee was therefore set up, and in 1952 it published Rules for Carbohydrate Nomenclature [18]. This work was continued, and a revised version was endorsed in 1963 by the American Chemical Society and by the Chemical Society in Britain and published [19]. The publication of this report led the IUPAC Commission on Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry to consider the preparation of a set of IUPAC Rules for Carbohydrate Nomenclature. This was done jointly with the IUPAC-IUB Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature, and resulted in the Tentative Rules for Carbohydrate Nomenclature, Part I, 1969 , published in 1971/72 in several journals [1]. It is a revision of this 1971 document that is presented here. In the present document, recommendations are designated 2-Carb-n, to distinguish them from the Carb-n recommendations in the previous publication. 

A major part in the language of chemistry is in learning the names of the chemicals (nomenclature). Many chemicals, particularly the more common ones, are known by several different names. For example, the chemical CH3CH2OH has the systematic name ethanol. The publication Chemical Abstracts (American Chemical Society) also uses the name ethanol. The historical or common name is ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol. A nickname for it is just alcohol, and there are various tradenames, depending on the manufacturer. For example, the Fastman Company sells it under the name of Tecsol . Fven trained chemists have trouble with nomenclature, which makes the use of and need for written chemical formulae common among chemists. 

Each manuscript should be submitted in duplicate to the secretary of the Editorial Board, Professor Stanley Kirschner, Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202, U.S.A. The manuscript should be typewritten in English. Nomenclature should be consistent and should follow the recommendations presented in The Definitive Rules for Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 82, 5523 (1960). Abbreviations should conform to those used in publications of the American Chemical Society, particularly Inorganic Chemistry. 

Association (ABMA), recommendations for boiler-water limits, 23 221t American Chemical Society Committee on Nomenclature and Notation, 17 385 American Chemistry Council (ACC) 14 204 codes of management practices, 21 580 Process Safety Code, 21 831 Responsible Care initiatives, 25 337 American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH),... 

Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature, 17 403-404 Commission on Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry (CNIC), 17 392 Committee on Medical and Biologic Effects of Environmental Pollutants, 26 585 Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology, and Symbols (American Chemical Society), 17 386... 

Accordingly, at a joint meeting1 of representatives of the British sub-committee on organo-phosphorus nomenclature and of the American Chemical Societies advisory sub-committee on organo-phosphorus nomenclature it was considered desirable to introduce an entirely new terminology for the P—Cl, P—NHj, etc., type of ester so as to overcome strong differences of opinion. 

The Commission acknowledges the first structure-based nomenclature rules for organic ladder and spiro polymers proposed by the Nomenclature Committee of the Division of Polymer Chemistry of the American Chemical Society [9]. 

American Chemical Society. A structure-based nomenclature for linear polymers , Macromolecules 1, 193-198 (1968). 

In 1968, the Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature of the Macromolecular Division (Division IV) was established under the Chairmanship of Kurt L. Loening with first Lionel C. Cross and later Robert B. Fox as Secretary. A series of major documents was produced that shaped modem polymer language. Most noteworthy was one that defined basic terms [5,6] and another on stracture-based nomenclature for regular singlestrand polymers [7,8]. The latter, originally developed by the Nomenclature Committee of the Polymer Division of the American Chemical Society and refined by the Commission, revolutionized polymer nomenclature by providing a systematic, consistent scheme particularly well-adapted to indexing it became the standard for Chemical Abstracts and... 

Before proceeding one needs to mention Chemical Abstracts (CA), a journal published by the American Chemical Society, that abstracts the world s chemical hterature and has developed its own nomenclature rules. The CA rules are generally very close to the IUPAC rules, but there are some differences. Most of the differences are not important at the level of the discussions in this book. One difference that needs to be mentioned is the placement of locants. CA does not place locants immediately before the part of the name to which they apply. Thus, the CA name for the first subunit in XV is 2,4-pyridinediyl instead of pyridine-... 

We follow the 1979 IUPAC recommendations summarized in Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons Nomenclature Guide (Loening et al. 1990). The American Chemical Society also publishes the Ring Systems Handbook, which, ca. 1990, contained structural diagrams for over 70,000 unique ring systems (American Chemical Society, 1977 to present). 

In the early 1970 s, the American Chemical Society authorized an alternative system for naming fully fluorinated compounds or groups in which the symbol F conveys the sense of perfluoro . This system, which has its roots in phi-nomenclature (e.g., (/(-heptane is 1) proposed in the 1940s, has not been used widely enough to warrant adopting it in this book. According to -nomenclature, for example, 2 is F-ncopcntanc, 3 is F-propene, 4 is F-pro-panal, 5 is bromo-F-benzene, and 6 is ethyl F-ethyl ether. 

Sanders, Alton F., "Graph Theoretical Constraints on Linearization Algorithms for Canonical Chemical Nomenclature," presented at the 169th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Philadelphia, April, 1975. 

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