Chemical Nomenclature and Structure Representation

Aims

The Division is responsible for maintaining and developing standard systems for designating chemical structures, including both conventional nomenclature and computer-based systems. This responsibility is to be fulfilled by:

1. Identifying the needs of the user community.
2. Generating projects arising from those needs.
3. Identifying project leaders and task groups to carry out the work.
4. Administering approved projects financially, monitoring their progress, and approving resulting recommendations for review by established IUPAC procedures.
5. Identifying new sources of expertise and enabling their involvement in projects.
6. As far as possible, ensuring that nomenclature systems projects and the resulting recommendations are compatible with each other, with established IUPAC recommendations, and with computer-based systems for manipulating chemical names and structures.

For information on the birth of the Division, see the following article: A. McNaught, Chem Int, Vol. 24, No. 2, March 2002, https://doi.org/10.1515/ci.2002.24.2.12b.

Emeritus Fellows

The Division awards the status of Emeritus Fellow to former members who have made outstanding contributions to IUPAC and, through chemistry in general (see more). In 2020, three Emeritus Fellows have been recognized: G. Jeffery Leigh, Alan McNaught, and Warren Powell.

Subcommittees and Commissions

• IUBMB-IUPAC Joint Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature (JCBN)
• Division VIII Advisory Subcommittee
• Subcommittee on the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier

Current Projects

• 2020-024-3-400 - Nomenclature and terminology for supramolecular polymers
• 2020-017-2-700 - A database of chemical structures and identifiers used in the control of WADA Prohibited Substances
• 2020-016-3-020 - The Gender Gap in Chemistry – Building on the ISC Gender Gap Project
• 2019-041-3-400 - Nomenclature of Sequence-Controlled Polymers
• 2019-036-1-800 - Structure-based nomenclature for irregular linear, star, comb and brush polymers with different types of constitutional repeating units (CRU)
• 2019-016-3-800 - Nomenclature and Associated Terminology for Inorganic Nanoscale Particles
• 2019-017-2-800 - Enhanced recognition and encoding of stereoconfiguration by InChI tools
• 2019-014-2-400 - Terminology of Polymer Aggregates
• 2019-002-2-024 - IUPAC SMILES+ Specification
• 2018-012-3-024 - InChI Open Education Resource (OER)
• 2017-036-2-800 - Graphical Representation Standards for Chemical Reaction Diagrams
• 2017-039-2-800 - Graphical Representation of Polymer Structures
• 2017-033-1-800 - Alignment of principles for specifying ligands and substituent groups across various areas of nomenclature
• 2015-025-4-800 - InChI extension for mixture composition
• 2015-052-1-800 - Corrections, Revisions and Extension for the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry - IUPAC Recommendations and Preferred Names 2013 (the IUPAC Blue Book)
• 2014-034-2-400 - Nomenclature for polymeric carriers bearing chemical entities with specific activities and names
• 2015-019-2-800 - Identifying International Chemical Identifier (InChI) Enhancements -- QR codes and Industry Applications
• 2013-056-1-800 - Nomenclature of carbon nanotubes and related substances
• 2013-010-1-800 - Implementation of InChI for chemically modified large biomolecules
• 2013-031-3-800 - Structure-based Nomenclature for Regular Linear, Star, Comb and Brush Polymers
• 2013-030-1-800 - Nomenclature for metallacycles containing transition metals
• 2012-046-2-800 - Handling of Inorganic compounds for InChI V2
• 2012-039-2-800 - Carbohydrate Nomenclature - Revision and extension of IUPAC Recommendations
• 2012-037-1-800 - A Comparison of Assignment of Hydro Prefixes, Added and Indicated Hydrogens in IUPAC, CAS and Beilstein Nomenclature Systems
• 2012-023-2-800 - Redesign of Handling of Tautomerism for InChI V2
• 2011-035-1-800 - Terminology and Nomenclature of Inorganic and Coordination Polymers
• 2009-022-2-800 - Glossary of Small Molecules of Biological Interest
• 2009-040-2-800 - InChI Requirements for Representation of Organometallic and Coordination Compound Structures
• 2004-024-1-800 - Nomenclature of cyclic peptides

Meeting Minutes

• Annual meeting (online), 19 September 2020 (Full text – pdf 1.6MB)
• Paris, France, 6-7 July 2019 (Full text – pdf 782KB)
• Basel, Switzerland, 13-14 August 2018 (Full text – pdf 1.6MB)
• Sao Paulo, Brazil, 8-9 July 2017 (Full text – pdf 522KB)
• Cambridge, UK, 4-5 August 2016 (Full text – pdf 326KB)
• Busan, Korea, 8-9 August 2015 (Full text – pdf 626KB)
• Bangor, UK, 3-4 August 2014 (Full text – pdf 528KB)
• Istanbul, Turkey, 9-10 Aug 2013 (Full text – pdf 448KB)
• Lisbon, Portugal, 2-3 July 2012 (Full text – pdf 251KB)
• San Juan, Puerto Rico, 28-29 July 2011 (Full text – pdf 325KB)
• Lund, Sweden, 12-13 Aug 2010 (Full text – pdf 264KB)
• Glasgow, UK, 31 July – 1 Aug 2009 (Full text – pdf 173KB)
• Buedingen, Germany, 31 July – 1 Aug 2008 (Full text – pdf 388KB)
• Torino, Italy, 4-5 Aug 2007 (Full text – pdf 368KB)
• Prague, Czech Republic, 6-7 Sep 2006 (Full text – pdf 249KB)
• Beijing, China, 13-14 Aug 2005 (Full text – pdf 99KB)
• Budapest, Hungary, 30-31 Aug 2004 (Full text – pdf 73KB)
• Ottawa, Canada, 9-10 Aug 2003 (Full text – pdf 350KB)
• Boston, MA, USA, 18 Aug 2002 (Full text – pdf 575KB)
• Cambridge, UK, 26 Jan 2002 (Full text – pdf 144KB)

Activity Reports

• Report 2020-2021 (prepared for Council virtual meeting August 2021) by Prof. Alan Hutton (pdf 303 KB)
• Report April 2021 (prepared for Bureau virtual meeting) by Prof. Alan Hutton (pdf 242 KB)
• Report 2020 (prepared for Bureau virtual meeting) by Prof. Alan Hutton (pdf 252 KB)
• Report 2018-2019 (prepared for Council in Paris) by Prof. Alan Hutton (pdf 158 KB)
• Report 2018 (prepared for Bureau in Bratislava) by Prof. Alan Hutton (pdf 331 KB)
• Report 2016 (prepared for Bureau in Montreal) by Dr. Karl-Heinz Hellwich (pdf 101 KB)
• Report 2014-2015 (prepared for Council in Busan) by Dr. Karl-Heinz Hellwich (pdf 91 KB)
• Roundups from Glasgow ( See the following article: Sydnes, L. K., “IUPAC in Glasgow: Division Roundups Part III,” Chemistry International, Vol. 32, No. 2, March-April 2010 – PDF; https://doi.org/10.1515/ci.2010.32.2.12))
• Report 2006-2007 (prepared for Council in Torino) by Prof. G.P. Moss (pdf 20KB)
• Report 2006 (prepared for Bureau in Madrid) by Prof. G.P. Moss (pdf 11KB)
• Report 2004-2005 (prepared for Council in Beijing) by Dr. A.D. McNaught (pdf 38KB) + Roundups from Beijing (CI Nov ’05)
• Report 2004 (prepared for Bureau in Bled) by Dr. A.D. McNaught (pdf 21KB)
• Report 2002-2003 (prepared for Council in Ottawa) by Dr. A.D. McNaught (pdf 29KB)
• 12-14 November 2003, XML in Chemistry and IUPAC Chemical Identifiers (report in CI Jul-Aug ’04, p.25; https://doi.org/10.1515/ci.2004.26.4.25)
• 1 July 2002, CAS/IUPAC Conference on Chemical Identifiers and XML for Chemistry (CIandXML_jul02.pdf)

Resources

• • Recommendations on Chemical and Biochemical Nomenclature, Symbols and Terminology
    World Wide Web material curated by Dr. Gerard P. Moss: https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/
    Here most recommendations on organic chemical and biochemical nomenclature published in Pure and Applied Chemistry are available in an html version. Any corrections identified after publication have been applied and are marked as a change. In a bibliographic section there are listed other publications such as the colour books and details of translations of the recommendations and books. There are links to a related set of recommendations that come from IUBMB, of which the largest part is concerned with enzyme nomenclature.
  • IUPAC Color Books: https://iupac.org/what-we-do/books/
  • Brief Guide to the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry or Inorganic Chemistry: 303 KB