benzaldehyde
nutty aldehydeFound in 515 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C7H6O
- Molecular weight
- 106.12 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 240 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor description
- almond, burnt sugar
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 1925 ppb 1 published value · see all 21 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 100-52-7
- Retention index
- 964
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2127
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- BENZALDEHYDE-Benzenecarbonal; Benzene
Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.
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.
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
21 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
1925 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1925 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
In a food matrix
0.100 ppb – 525 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.100 ppb SIDA | water (food: strawberry) | Literature corpus | 30779560, 32625638, 33714268 +97 |
| 0.200 ppb | water (food: pepper) | Literature corpus | 34716586, 40060959 |
| 0.318 ppb | water (food: beer) | Literature corpus | 17499755, 33889833 |
| 0.870 ppb | water (food: lime) | Literature corpus | 17944532, 30972045, 41048468 |
| 1.0 ppb | water (food: apple) | Literature corpus | 34196858 |
| 1.5 ppb | water (food: grape) | Literature corpus | 36890905 |
| 5.0 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 25442558, 38846797, 40467248 +1 |
| 5.5 ppb | water (food: ginger) | Literature corpus | 41193520 |
| 5.6 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | 31861730, 32968179, 33347483 +1 |
| 7.0 ppb | water (food: fish) | Literature corpus | 24594176, 36144849, 36950329 +2 |
| 9.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 33714268, 18974891 +58 |
| 41.4 ppb | water (food: soy sauce) | Literature corpus | 17898513 |
| 53.1 ppb SIDA | water (food: honey) | Literature corpus | 32625638, 23341742 |
| 156 ppb | water (food: peach) | Literature corpus | 37476402 |
| 470 ppb | water (food: tomato) | Literature corpus | 39227423, 39789073 |
| 525 ppb | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | 32397426 |
| 756 ppb | water (food: cocoa) | Literature corpus | 36900586 |
| Flagged: 108× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 758 ppb | water (food: beef) | Literature corpus | 38974721 |
| Flagged: 108× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 965 ppb SIDA | water (food: bread) | Literature corpus | 33714268, 28274420, 28490062 +4 |
| Flagged: 138× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
Retronasal / in-mouth
1500 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1500 ppb SIDA | water_flavor | Leffingwell | 30779560 |
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 (9.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 21 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| jmhj | 1430.3 | 159 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| mi-peach flavor sports drink | 870.2 | 96.7 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| peach | 619.9 | 68.9 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| beef | 507.4 | 56.4 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| tomato | 475.0 | 52.8 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| honey | 53.1 | 5.91 | Corpus paper |
| bread | 21.9 | 2.43 | Corpus paper |
| cocoa | 10.3 | 1.15 | Corpus paper |
| tea | 6.5 | 0.72 | Corpus paper |
| apple | 6.5 | 0.72 | Corpus paper |
| fish | 6.0 | 0.67 | Corpus paper |
| pepper | 5.8 | 0.64 | Corpus paper |
| soybean sauce | 4.2 | 0.47 | — |
| ginger | 4.2 | 0.46 | Corpus paper |
| rice | 2.0 | 0.22 | — |
| grape | 1.6 | 0.18 | — |
| wine | 1.0 | 0.11 | — |
| lime | 0.9 | 0.10 | — |
| rum | 0.8 | 0.09 | — |
| beer | 0.4 | 0.05 | — |
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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain benzaldehyde. 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 benzaldehyde in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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