2,4-decadienal

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 80 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C10H16O
Molecular weight: 152.23 g/mol
PubChem CID: 5283349 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: seaweed
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 1.1 ppb 1 published value · see all 17 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 2363-88-4
Retention index: 1318

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

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.

Descriptions on file

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.

seaweed shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

fatty FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fruity, green, grassy, caramel, butter FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

Very powerful fatty, oily and citrus-like notes FlavorDB 2.0

fatty, deep fried FlavorDB 2.0

off-odor FlavorDB 2.0

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

17 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.

Orthonasal, in clean water

1.1 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.1 ppb SIDA	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7

In a food matrix

0.027 ppb – 0.510 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.027 ppb SIDA	water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha))	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.030 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.030 ppb SIDA	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.056 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.070 ppb SIDA	water (food: wheat porridge / bread crumb)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.170 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.200 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.200 ppb SIDA	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.310 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
0.510 ppb SIDA	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	32251584
34.0 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	10552650, 39479676
Flagged: 170× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
57.1 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	34653803, 36866058, 40177180
Flagged: 286× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
81.0 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	29037691
Flagged: 405× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
444 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	17411067, 32967724, 34652538
Flagged: 2218× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Other matrix

1.1 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.1 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7
1.1 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	32251584, 10552650, 17411067 +7

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 (0.2 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 17 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
lard	10000.0	50000 ⚡	—
beef	1854.0	9270 ⚡	Corpus paper
rum	70.5	352 ⚡	Corpus paper
olive	7.0	35.0 ⚡	PMID 29146322
noodles	1.3	6.45	Corpus paper
tea	0.2	0.80	Corpus paper

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2,4-decadienal. 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 2,4-decadienal in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

beef

measured · OAV 9270.0

451 cmpds

254 cmpds

370 cmpds

617 cmpds