CBE Senior Design Project - Course Guide: Industry and Supplier Information

This guide highlights several resources provided by the Lippincott Library for conducting industry and market research. Our colleague in Lippincott, Cynthia Cronin Kardon, can be a great resource for navigating business resources at Penn (croninkc@wharton.upenn.edu).

Located on the second floor in Van Pelt Library, Lippincott primarily serves the Wharton School, but is accessible to all Penn students.

Cost estimation tool for pre-commercial catalysts developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Directory of suppliers to over 590,000 electrical, mechanical and optical component families. You will need to register (this is free!) to access the product information. In addition to keyword, searching via specifications is available in many equipment sub-categories.

Thomas Register is the most comprehensive online resource for finding companies and products manufactured in North America. (Requires free registration)

When you search for substances in SciFinder, you may have the option to link to the CHEMCATS database, which gives commercial availability for a large number of suppliers. Some do not give pricing and quantity, while others do. All give the URL and contact information for the company, however. In some cases, bulk quantities are indicated.

Suppliers submit their own information to this aggregate catalog, which links back to individual sellers. Quantities are generally included; you must request a quote in order to get pricing. Bulk quantities are indicated, as is the contact information and URL of individual suppliers.

Searchable by structure or identifier, this resource lists the suppliers and some limited physical data for over 8M substances. Link directly to the suppliers' sites for quantities and pricing. Also available as a link from a Reaxys substance or reaction search.

Successor publication to Chemical Market Reporter. From late 2007 to late 2010, articles entitled "Key Indicators" in most issues contain bulk pricing data for a regular set of popular industrial chemicals. Articles marked "Chemical Profile" provide a regional (ex. Europe, North America, etc.) view of the chemical, its sales, and its industry. Regular articles throughout provide profiling of various chemicals individually with some including pricing data. Available from the Nexis Uni periodical database.

Broad list of bulk chemical prices taken from the 28 August 2006 issue of Chemical Market Reporter, which is no longer published.

Searches the catalogs of Aldrich, Sigma, and Fluka, primarily for fine chemicals. Pricing and quantity are available, as are physical properties, MSDS information, and some spectral information.