Chemistry Tools Help
Chemistry Tools is a self-hosted retrosynthesis and forward-synthesis toolset, available to Chemical Sciences students as part of any active subscription.
Access
Chemistry Tools requires an active subscription to any subject, not specifically Chemical Sciences — if you have a Physical or Life Sciences plan, you can still open it. If you don't have an active subscription yet, you'll see a sign-in/upgrade prompt instead of the tools.
Opening Chemistry Tools
Click Chemistry Tools in the sidebar (see Navigation Help) — it opens in a new browser tab.
What you can do
- Interactive Planner — draw or paste a target molecule (SMILES notation), review single-step retrosynthetic disconnections ranked by model confidence, and expand the route step by step yourself.
- Tree Builder — automated multi-step retrosynthesis search (MCTS), exploring full synthetic routes back to purchasable starting materials without manual step-by-step review.
- Forward Synthesis — given a set of reactants, predict the likely product(s), conditions, impurities, and selectivity.
- Utilities — solubility prediction/solvent screening, and the buyable-compounds catalog behind every "$" marker you see in the planning tools.
- Molecule drawing — a built-in structure editor (Ketcher) for entering molecules without needing to know SMILES notation by hand.
Each tool's page above also has an Advanced section covering strategy customization, deeper analysis features, and less-common settings — worth a read once you're comfortable with the basic workflow.
Tips
- Tree Builder searches take longer than one-step predictions — a full multi-iteration search can take noticeably longer than a single retrosynthesis call. This is normal; give it time to complete rather than assuming it's stuck.
- If a button seems to do nothing (no result, no error message) — try reloading the Chemistry Tools tab. If it persists, contact support with what you clicked and what molecule/reaction you were working with.
- Chemistry Tools opens in its own tab so you can keep your Study Library chat open alongside it.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| "Chemistry Tools" link gives a sign-in prompt | Your session expired — sign in again at app.examcatalyst.ai |
| Clicking the sidebar link does nothing / shows access denied | No active subscription on your account — see Pricing |
| A search or prediction seems to hang | Complex multi-step searches can take a while — wait before retrying |
Still stuck? Email support@examcatalyst.ai with what you were trying to do and which molecule/reaction was involved.