The definitive chemistry encyclopedia is the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. You can get copies of entries from NYPL Premium Services and other libraries with science collections.
The American Chemical Society posts ACS Publications on the Internet. The Chemical Abstracts Service posts a Chemical Abstracts (CA) and Registry and other research databases. You can also get articles from Dialog's Chemistry databases (discussed below).
You can find the names of chemical compounds decoded on the Internet at ChemFinder and at a site maintained by the Free University of Berlin's Chemistry Department (http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de).
Dialog offers several chemical-related databases including Analytical Abstracts by The Royal Society of Chemistry (File 305), the Dictionary of Substances and Their Effects (File 307), Chemical Abstracts (Files 308-314), Chemical Engineering and Biology Abstracts (File 315), Chemical Safety Newsbase (File 317), Chem-Intell Chemical Manufacturing Plants (File 318) and Chemical Business NewsBase (File 319). If you need to do research in this area and, like me, don't know much about it, call Dialog (800-334-2564) and ask the rep where and how to search.