2-hexanone

fruity ketone

Found in 48 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C6H12O
Molecular weight: 100.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 11583 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: ethereal, fruity, sharp
Odor threshold — in air: 24.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 1 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 591-78-6
Retention index: 794

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4583
GRAS publication: GRAS 24
FEMA primary name: 4-Mercapto-4-methyl-2-hexanone

Reported use levels (ppm by food category)

Typical vs maximum reported addition levels in finished food. Use as a regulatory ceiling reference — verify against the current GRAS publication for your product category.

Food category	Typical (ppm)	Maximum (ppm)
instant coffee/tea	0.001	0.005

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

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.

ether, ethereal FlavorDB 2.0

fruity FlavorDB 2.0

ethereal, fruity, sharp shown above Llm Adjudicated

—

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

1 measured value 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 air

24.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
24.0 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

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-hexanone. 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-hexanone in it.

99 cmpds

106 cmpds

152 cmpds

164 cmpds