International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry


The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is a member of the International Science Council. IUPAC is registered in Zürich, Switzerland, and its administrative office, known as the "IUPAC Secretariat", is in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States. The executive director of the administrative office is Fabienne Meyers.
IUPAC was established in 1919 as the successor of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry for the advancement of chemistry. Its members, the National Adhering Organizations, can be national chemistry societies, national academies of sciences, or other bodies representing chemists. There are fifty-four National Adhering Organizations and three Associate National Adhering Organizations. IUPAC's Inter-divisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols is the recognized world authority in developing standards for naming the chemical elements and compounds. Since its creation, IUPAC has been run by many different committees with different responsibilities. These committees run different projects which include standardizing nomenclature, finding ways to bring chemistry to the world, and publishing works.
IUPAC is best known for its works standardizing nomenclature in chemistry, but IUPAC has publications in many science fields including chemistry, biology, and physics. Some important work IUPAC has done in these fields includes standardizing nucleotide base sequence code names; publishing books for environmental scientists, chemists, and physicists; and improving education in science. IUPAC is also known for standardizing the atomic weights of the elements through one of its oldest standing committees, the Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights.
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Creation and history

The need for an international standard for chemistry was first addressed in 1860 by a committee headed by German scientist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz. This committee was the first international conference to create an international naming system for organic compounds. The ideas that were formulated at that conference evolved into the official IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry. IUPAC is a legacy of this meeting, making it one of the most important historical international collaborations of chemistry societies. IUPAC as such was established in 1919.Since this time, IUPAC has been the official organization with the responsibility of updating and maintaining official organic nomenclature.
One notable country excluded from early IUPAC was Germany. Germany's exclusion was a result of prejudice towards it by the Allied powers after World War I. Germany was finally admitted into IUPAC in 1929. However, Nazi Germany was removed from IUPAC during World War II. At this time, IUPAC was affiliated with the Allied powers, but had little involvement with the war effort itself. East and West Germany were only readmitted to IUPAC in 1973. Since World War II, IUPAC has focused on standardizing nomenclature and methods in science.
In 2016, IUPAC denounced the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon. In a letter to Ahmet Üzümcü, director of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the organization pointed out their concerns in regards to chlorine weapon usage in the Syrian civil war and other places
. The letter stated, "Our organizations deplore the use of chlorine in this manner. The indiscriminate attacks, possibly carried out by a member state of the Chemical Weapons Convention, are of concern to chemical scientists and engineers around the globe and we stand ready to support your mission of implementing the CWC." According to the CWC, "the use, stockpiling, distribution, development or storage of any chemical weapons is forbidden by any of the 192 state party signatories."

Committees and governance

IUPAC is governed by several committees that all have different responsibilities. The committees are as follows: Bureau, CHEMRAWN Committee, Committee on Chemistry Education, Committee on Chemistry and Industry, Committee on Printed and Electronic Publications, Evaluation Committee, Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Interdivisional Committee on Terminology, Nomenclature and Symbols, Project Committee, and Pure and Applied Chemistry Editorial Advisory Board. Each committee is made up of members of different National Adhering Organizations from different countries.
The steering committee hierarchy for IUPAC is as follows:
  • All committees have an allotted budget to which they must adhere.
  • Any committee may start a project.
  • If a project's spending becomes too much for a committee to continue funding, it must take the issue to the Project Committee.
  • The project committee either increases the budget or decides on an external funding plan.
  • The Bureau and Executive Committee oversee operations of the other committees.
Committee name Responsibilities
Bureau
  • Discussing and making changes to which committee has authority over a specific project
  • Controlling finances for all other committees and IUPAC as a whole
  • Discussing general governance of IUPAC
Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division
  • Organizing and promoting the international collaboration between scientists in physical and biophysical chemistry and related fields
    • Inorganic Chemistry Division
  • Inorganic and inorganic materials chemistry, isotopes, and atomic weights, periodic table
    • Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry Division
  • Promoting the goals of IUPAC in the field of organic and biomolecular chemistry in the broadest sense
    • Polymer Division
  • The science and technology of macromolecules and polymers
    • Analytical Chemistry Division
  • The general aspects of analytical chemistry, separation methods, spectrochemical methods, electrochemical methods,
    • nuclear chemistry methods, and applications to human health and the environment.
    Chemistry and the Environment Division
    • Providing unbiased and timely authoritative reviews on the behavior of chemical compounds in food and the environment.
    Chemistry and Human Health Division
  • Medicinal and clinical chemistry
    • Chemical Nomenclature and Structure Representation Division
    • Maintaining and developing standard systems for designating chemical structures, including both conventional nomenclature and computer-based systems.
    CHEMRAWN Committee
  • Discussing different ways chemistry can and should be used to help the world
    • Committee on Chemistry Education
  • Coordinating IUPAC chemistry research with the educational systems of the world
    • Committee on Chemistry and Industry
  • Coordinating IUPAC chemistry research with industrial chemistry needs
    • Committee on Ethics, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Promoting and developing the core values stated in the IUPAC strategic plan
    • Committee on Publications and Cheminformatics Data Standards
  • Designing and implementing IUPAC publications
  • Heading the Subcommittee on Spectroscopic Data Standards
    • Evaluation Committee
  • Evaluating every project
  • Reporting back to the Executive Committee on every project
    • Executive Committee
  • Planning and discussing IUPAC events
  • Discussing IUPAC fundraising
  • Reviewing other committees' work
    • Current officers of the Executive Committee:
    • President: García Martínez, Javier
    • Vice president: Keinan, Ehud
    • Past President: Brett, Christopher M. A.
    • Treasurer: Koch, Wolfram
    • Secretary General: Hartshorn, Richard M.
    Finance Committee
  • Helping other committees properly manage their budgets
  • Advising union officers on investments
  • Advancing for green and sustainable chemistry
  • Coordinating all the work of IUPAC in this area to develop a coherent program of action
  • Initiating and coordinating projects in green and sustainable chemistry
  • Encouraging activities in these areas from across the Divisions and Standing Committees
  • Harmonization, regulation, and standardization in green and sustainable chemistry
  • Organizing the series of IUPAC International Conferences on Green Chemistry
  • Managing IUPAC participation in the PhosAgro/UNESCO/IUPAC Green Chemistry for Life awards program
  • Managing the series
  • Managing
  • Working and collaborating with other international organizations and industries
  • Seeking additional sponsorship and support from industrial sources
    • Interdivisional Committee on Terminology
  • Managing IUPAC nomenclature
  • Working through many projects to standardize nomenclature
  • Standardizing measurements
  • Discussing atomic weight standardization
    • Project Committee
  • Managing funds that are under the jurisdiction of multiple projects
  • Judging if a project is too large for its funding
  • Recommending sources of external funding for projects
  • Deciding how to fund meetings in developing countries and countries in crisis
    • Pure and Applied Chemistry Editorial Advisory Board
  • Helping to plan, implement, and publish Pure and Applied Chemistry

    • Nomenclature

    Scientists framed a systematic method for naming organic compounds based on their structures. Hence, the naming rules were formulated by IUPAC.

    Basic spellings

    IUPAC establishes rules for harmonized spelling of some chemicals to reduce variation among different local English-language variants. For example, they recommend "aluminium" rather than "aluminum", "sulfur" rather than "sulphur", and "caesium" rather than "cesium".

    Organic nomenclature

    IUPAC organic nomenclature has three basic parts: the substituents, carbon chain length, and chemical affix. The substituents are any functional groups attached to the main carbon chain. The main carbon chain is the longest possible continuous chain. The chemical affix denotes what type of molecule it is. For example, the ending ane denotes a single bonded carbon chain, as in "hexane".
    Another example of IUPAC organic nomenclature is cyclohexanol:
    • The substituent name for a ring compound is cyclo.
    • The indication for a six carbon chain is hex.
    • The chemical ending for a single bonded carbon chain is ane.
    • The chemical ending for an alcohol is ol.
    • The two chemical endings are combined for an ending of anol indicating a single bonded carbon chain with an alcohol attached to it.

    Inorganic nomenclature

    Basic IUPAC inorganic nomenclature has two main parts: the cation and the anion. The cation is the name for the positively charged ion and the anion is the name for the negatively charged ion.
    An example of IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry is potassium chlorate :

    Amino acid and nucleotide base codes

    IUPAC also has a system for giving codes to identify amino acids and nucleotide bases. IUPAC needed a coding system that represented long sequences of amino acids. This would allow for these sequences to be compared to try to find homologies. These codes can consist of either a one-letter code or a three-letter code.
    These codes make it easier and shorter to write down the amino acid sequences that make up proteins. The nucleotide bases are made up of purines and pyrimidines. These nucleotide bases make up DNA and RNA. These nucleotide base codes make the genome of an organism much smaller and easier to read.
    Nucleic acid codeMeaningReasoning
    AAAdenine
    CCCytosine
    GGGuanine
    TTThymine
    UUUracil
    RA or GPurine
    YC, T or UPyrimidines
    KG, T or UBases that are ketones
    MA or CBases with amino groups
    SC or GStrong interaction
    WA, T, or UWeak interaction
    BNot A B comes after A
    DNot C D comes after C
    HNot G H comes after G
    VNeither T nor U V comes after U
    NA C G T UNucleic acid
    XMasked
    -Gap of indeterminate length

    The codes for amino acids are:
    Amino acid codeMeaning
    AAlanine
    BAspartic acid or asparagine
    CCysteine
    DAspartic acid
    EGlutamic acid
    FPhenylalanine
    GGlycine
    HHistidine
    IIsoleucine
    KLysine
    LLeucine
    MMethionine
    NAsparagine
    OPyrrolysine
    PProline
    QGlutamine
    RArginine
    SSerine
    TThreonine
    USelenocysteine
    VValine
    WTryptophan
    YTyrosine
    ZGlutamic acid or glutamine
    JLeucine or isoleucine
    XAny
    *Translation stop
    -Gap of indeterminate length

    Publications

    ''Experimental Thermodynamics'' book series

    The Experimental Thermodynamics books series covers many topics in the fields of thermodynamics.
    BookDescription
    Measurement of the Transport Properties of Fluids
    Measurement of the Transport Properties of Fluids is a book that is published by Blackwell Science. The topics that are included in this book are low and high-temperature measurements, secondary coefficients, diffusion coefficients, light scattering, transient methods for thermal conductivity, methods for thermal conductivity, falling-body viscometers, and vibrating viscometers.
    Solution Calorimetry
    Solution Calorimetry is a book that gives background information on thermal analysis and calorimetry. Thermoanalytical and calorimetric techniques along with thermodynamic and kinetic properties are also discussed. Later volumes of this book discuss the applications and principles of these thermodynamic and kinetic methods.
    Equations of State for Fluids and Fluid Mixtures Part I
    Equations of State for Fluids and Fluid Mixtures Part I is a book that gives up to date equations of state for fluids and fluid mixtures. This book covers all ways to develop equations of state. It gives the strengths and weaknesses of each equation. Some equations discussed include: virial equation of state cubic equations; generalized Van der Waals equations; integral equations; perturbation theory; and stating and mixing rules. Other things that Equations of State for Fluids and Fluid Mixtures Part I goes over are: associating fluids, polymer systems, polydisperse fluids, self-assembled systems, ionic fluids, and fluids near their critical points.
    Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Single Phases
    Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Single Phases is a book that gives an overview of techniques for measuring the thermodynamic quantities of single phases. It also goes into experimental techniques to test many different thermodynamic states precisely and accurately. Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Single Phases was written for people interested in measuring thermodynamic properties.
    Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Multiple Phases
    Measurement of the Thermodynamic Properties of Multiple Phases is a book that includes multiple techniques that are used to study multiple phases of pure component systems. Also included in this book are the measurement techniques to obtain activity coefficients, interfacial tension, and critical parameters. This book was written for researchers and graduate students as a reference source.

    Coloured cover book and website series (nomenclature)

    IUPAC colour code their books in order to make each publication distinguishable.
    TitleDescription
    Compendium of Analytical Nomenclature
    One extensive book on almost all nomenclature written by IUPAC committee is the Compendium of Analytical Nomenclature. This book was revised in 1987. The second edition has many revisions that come from reports on nomenclature between 1976 and 1984. In 1992, the second edition went through many different revisions, which led to the third edition.
    Pure and Applied Chemistry
    Pure and Applied Chemistry is the official monthly journal of IUPAC. This journal debuted in 1960. The goal statement for Pure and Applied Chemistry is to "publish highly topical and credible works at the forefront of all aspects of pure and applied chemistry." The journal itself is available by subscription, but older issues are available in the archive on IUPAC's website.
    Pure and Applied Chemistry was created as a central way to publish IUPAC endorsed articles. Before its creation, IUPAC did not have a quick, official way to distribute new chemistry information.
    Its creation was first suggested at the Paris IUPAC Meeting of 1957. During this meeting the commercial publisher of the journal was discussed and decided on. In 1959, the IUPAC Pure and Applied Chemistry Editorial Advisory Board was created and put in charge of the journal. The idea of one journal being a definitive place for a vast amount of chemistry was difficult for the committee to grasp at first. However, it was decided that the journal would reprint old journal editions to keep all chemistry knowledge available.
    Compendium of Chemical Terminology
    The Compendium of Chemical Terminology, also known as the "Gold Book", was originally worked on by Victor Gold. This book is a collection of names and terms already discussed in Pure and Applied Chemistry. The Compendium of Chemical Terminology was first published in 1987. The first edition of this book contains no original material, but is meant to be a compilation of other IUPAC works.
    The second edition of this book was published in 1997. This book made large changes to the first edition of the     Compendium of Chemical Terminology. These changes included updated material and an expansion of the book to include over seven thousand terms. The second edition was the topic of an IUPAC XML project. This project made an XML version of the book that includes over seven thousand terms. The XML version of the book includes an open editing policy, which allows users to add excerpts of the written version.
    IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry, also known as the "Blue Book", is a website published by the Advanced Chemistry Department Incorporated with the permission of IUPAC. This site is a compilation of the books A Guide to IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Compounds and Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry.

    International Year of Chemistry

    IUPAC and UNESCO were the lead organizations coordinating events for the International Year of Chemistry, which took place in 2011. The International Year of Chemistry was originally proposed by IUPAC at the general assembly in Turin, Italy. This motion was adopted by UNESCO at a meeting in 2008. The main objectives of the International Year of Chemistry were to increase public appreciation of chemistry and gain more interest in the world of chemistry. This event is also being held to encourage young people to get involved and contribute to chemistry. A further reason for this event being held is to honour how chemistry has made improvements to everyone's way of life.

    IUPAC Presidents

    IUPAC Presidents are elected by the IUPAC Council during the General Assembly. Below is the list of IUPAC Presidents since its inception in 1919.
    TermPresidentNationality
    1920–1922Charles Moureu
    1923–1925William Jackson Pope
    1926–1928Ernst Julius Cohen
    1928–1934Einar Biilman
    1934–1938N. Paravano
    1938–1947Marston Taylor Bogert
    1947–1951Hugo Rudolph Kruyt
    1951–1955Arne Tiselius
    1955–1959Arthur Stoll
    1959–1963William Albert Noyes Jr.
    1963–1965Lord Todd
    1965–1967Wilhelm Klemm
    1967–1969V.N. Kondratiev
    1969–1971Albert Lloyd George Rees
    1971–1973Jacques Bénard
    1973–1975Sir Harold Thompson
    1975–1977Robert W. Cairns
    1977–1979Georges Smets
    1979–1981Heinrich Zollinger
    1981–1983Saburo Nagakura
    1983–1985William G. Schneider
    1987–1989Valentin A. Koptyug
    1989–1991Yves P. Jeannin
    1991–1993Allen J. Bard
    1993–1995Kiril I. Zamaraev
    1996–1997Albert E. Fischli
    1998–1999Joshua Jortner
    2000–2001Alan Hayes
    2002–2003Pieter Streicher Steyn
    2004–2005Leiv Kristen Sydnes
    2006–2007Bryan Henry
    2008–2009Jung-Il Jin
    2010–2011Nicole J. Moreau
    2012–2013Kazuyuki Tatsumi
    2014–2015Mark Cesa
    2016–2017Natalia Tarasova
    2018–2019Zhou Qifeng
    2020–2021Christopher M.A. Brett
    2022–2023Javier García-Martínez
    2024–2025Ehud Keinan