Gmelin Handbook : a Quick Guide

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Overview

The 8th Edition of the Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry is the most extensive printed compilation of information and data on chemical elements and their compounds and alloys. It was compiled by the Gmelin Institute, part of the Max Planck Institute, and published in over 400 volumes from 1924 to 1998 by Springer-Verlag. All information in the Handbook was derived from the primary literature of chemistry, physics, and metallurgy, and then critically appraised and organized by chemical element and species.

Gmelin is typically used to locate factual information on specific compounds via the Formula Indexes. This information includes any or all of the following for a chemical compound:

• History and occurence
• Formation and Preparation (Bildung und Darstellung)
• Physical properties (crystallographic, optical, spectral, electrical, magnetic, mechanical, thermodynamic)
• Chemical properties and reactions, electrochemical behavior, etc.
• Uses, toxicology, miscellany

Text is augmented by tables and graphs in many places. All information is accompanied by the source literature reference.

Coverage: Gmelin vs. Beilstein

For the most part, the content of the Gmelin Handbook and its organic chemistry counterpart, the Beilstein Handbook, is mutually exclusive: compounds covered in one are by definition excluded from the other. Beilstein covers only organic carbon compounds with the elements H, O, N, S, Br, I, Cl, and F (with a few narrowly defined exceptions). Gmelin covers most everything else: pure elements, ionic inorganics, salts, coordination compounds, organometallic complexes, and alloys. Metal-containing natural products, biological substances, and macromolecules are excluded from Gmelin. While dense, the Gmelin Handbook is more textual and less abbreviated -- and thus somewhat easier to use -- than the Beilstein Handbook.

Arrangement

The volumes of Gmelin are organized and shelved alphabetically by chemical element symbol (as indicated by the yellow shelf dividers). All known elements, including inorganic carbon and ammonium, are represented, though some elements are combined into a single set of volumes. Elements are assigned System Numbers, and compounds are assigned to an element volume based on the highest system number present in the formula. Within each element set, compounds are arranged by increasing order of complexity and number of constituent elements.

In practice, a user does not need to know anything about this classification system, since compounds are most easily located using the formula indexes.

Although Gmelin was published over many decades, the volumes are far from uniform in their currency. Some elements are represented only by slim summary volumes published in the 1930s, with no further updates. Other elements (such as Fe, B, S, F, U, etc.) have numerous supplements as well as the original "main volumes". In most cases, later supplement volumes focus on an element's organometallic compounds (Organische Verbindungen). Each volume provides a literature coverage date on the back of the title page.

Before 1982, Gmelin text was in German, with English tables of contents, section headings, and sidebar tabs to guide the non-German reader. After 1982 Gmelin was published in English.

The Gmelin Handbook is shelved in the library's reference stacks, near Beilstein, Houben-Weyl, and Landolt-Börnstein. Volumes are non-circulating.

Indexes

The Gmelin Formula Indexes (GFI) were published in four sequential sets covering the Handbook through 1995. To be sure you're not missing an entry, all four sets must be checked in turn. The indexes list in alphanumeric order all elements and defined compounds included in the Handbook. The Gmelin empirical formula indexes are in strict alphabetic order by element symbol, not in the more familiar Hill Order found in organic formula indexes, or in typical cation-anion order of common inorganics. Thus, CuSO₄ would be found in the index as Cu O₄ S. Other expamples:
PBr₃ = Br₃ P
(CH₃CO₂)₂ Mn = C₄H₆MnO₄.
The index entry provides the conventional formula, Element designation, volume, part, and page numbers where that compound can be found.

CuO₄W ........ CuWO₄ ........ 60 (Cu): Hb/B3--1236/7
Information on this compound will be found in the Copper (Cu) volumes of the Main series (Hb), in volume B3, pages 1236-7. You can ignore the System Number (60 in this case) because these are no longer used in the shelving arrangement.

The Gmelin Complete Catalog from 1997 is a searchable PDF with synopses of every published volume. It's useful for getting an overview of the series and its content.

The Gmelin Database

The database version of Gmelin is not equivalent to the print. Most of the numeric data contained in the printed Handbook volumes up to 1975 (though not the full text, tables, or graphics) are available in the Gmelin Crossfire and Reaxys systems and the closed GMELIN97 file on STN. Data from the 1976-97 Handbook volumes are not in the database version. Instead there are data excerpted from about 110 journals separately scanned after 1976. Gmelin's coverage and currency faltered after 1998 and there are certainly gaps in the data that remain to be filled in. 62 journals are scanned today. Gmelin is currently owned and compiled by Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) and licensed exclusively to Elsevier for distribution in their Crossfire and Reaxys products.