The chemical exergy of a substance is the maximum work that can be obtained from it by taking it to chemical equilibrium with the reference environment at constant temperature and pressure. This exergy is normally taken or calculated from tabulated values obtained for standard conditions, i.e. an ambient temperature of 298.15 K, an atmospheric pressure of 1 atm, and a model of reference species which considers the concentration of the most common components of the atmosphere, the oceans and the Earth's crust. The model proposed by Szargut for the calculation of the standard chemical exergy of elements and organic and inorganic substances has been revised. As a result of this revision, updated values of standard chemical exergy of elements are presented and compared with the ones estimated by Szargut. Because of some anomalous behaviour in the chemical exergy when a different salinity of seawater is assumed, some different reference species than those used in the latest version of the Szargut model were proposed for the following elements: silver, gold, barium, calcium, cadmium, copper, mercury, magnesium, nickel, lead, strontium and zinc. A complete set of updated values of chemical exergies of elements for the standard conditions (298.15 K and I atm) is tabulated. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.