Skip to main content

2-heptanal

green aldehyde

Found in 2 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Properties

Odor description
fruity, green, citrus, sulfurous, fatty, corn, woody, sweet, nutty, potato
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
29.0 ppb – 1570 ppb median 800 ppb · 2 published values · see all 11 with sources
CAS number
110-43-0
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.

fruity, green, citrus, sulfurous, fatty, corn, woody, sweet, nutty, potato shown above FlavorDB 2.0
2
fruity, woody, sweet, nutty, potato Flavordb Odor Column
—
fatty, corn Flavordb Odor Column
—
fruity, green, citrus, sulfurous, fatty Flavordb Odor Column
—

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

11 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

29.0 ppb – 1570 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
29.0 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies —
1570 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —

In a food matrix

1.0 ppb – 514 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1.0 ppb water (food: goat milk) Literature corpus —
6.0 ppb water (food: fish) Literature corpus —
160 ppb water (food: wine) Literature corpus —
514 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus —

Retronasal / in-mouth

1000 ppb – 1500 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1000 ppb water_flavor Leffingwell —
1500 ppb SIDA oil_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —

In air

4.8 ppb – 6.8 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
4.8 ppb air (C2_cometto_muniz_abraham) Cometto-Muñiz (PMC) —
6.8 ppb air Nagata 2003 —

Other matrix

1500 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1500 ppb SIDA oil_orthonasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —

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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-heptanal. 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-heptanal in it.

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on 2-heptanal, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.