1,2-propanediol
chemical oxygenated compoundFound in 16 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C3H8O2
- Molecular weight
- 76.09 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 1030 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor description
- odorless, faint, alcoholic
- Odor threshold — in a food matrix
- 117 ppb – 1594 ppb median 856 ppb · 2 published values · see all 2 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- Retention index
- 758
How this molecule is described
Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.
Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.
Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.
Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.
Published thresholds
2 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.
In a food matrix
117 ppb – 1594 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 117 ppb SIDA | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 40401362, 25829605, 26283896 +1 |
| 1594 ppb SIDA | water (food: olive oil) | Literature corpus | 40401362, 25829605, 26283896 +1 |
Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.
Where you'd actually smell it
Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (60.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 2 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| olive oil | 1586.0 | 26.4 ⚡ | — |
| bread | 1200.0 | 20.0 ⚡ | — |
Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).
These OAVs depend on which threshold you divide by. Published values for this molecule span 60–3.36e+06 ppb and the column above uses the lowest, which makes every OAV as large as it can be. At the high end each figure would be 56000× smaller, and rows near the line would cross it. Read the colours as “worth a look”, not as a measurement.
Found in
Measured impact first, then profile shareEvery ingredient known to contain 1,2-propanediol. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of 1,2-propanediol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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