Hill Notation

Lili Lyddon

March 21, 2007


When entering components in ProMax, the components may be filtered based on chemical formula. If the exact formula is known, you may enter the formula in the field and all compounds matching that formula will be listed, subject to other filters. This is a case sensitive match and elements should be entered using their standard upper and lower case combinations. Additionally, a wildcard search technique is available. The percent sign (%) represents one or more of any character. The underscore ( _ ) is used to match any single character. You may place any number of percent signs or underscores in a filter string. If wildcards are used, the filter must be created using CAS Hill notation for the compound. Hill notation requires carbon to be specified first, followed by Hydrogen. After Hydrogen, the remaining elements are entered in alphabetical order. Some examples are: CH4 (Methane), H3N (Ammonia), CH4O (Methanol), ClNa (Sodium Chloride), and CHBr2F (Dibromofluoromethane).

Authored by Lili Lyddon (BR&E Technical Support and Help Author)