benzene

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 16 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C6H6
Molecular weight: 78.11 g/mol
PubChem CID: 241 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: off-odor
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 1.2 ppb – 39.4 ppb median 4.9 ppb · 5 published values · see all 6 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 71-43-2
Retention index: 999

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match

FEMA number: 3868
GRAS publication: GRAS 18
FEMA primary name: Benzene, (methylthio)

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

Published thresholds

6 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

1.2 ppb – 39.4 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.2 ppb	water (food: apple)	Literature corpus	—
1.4 ppb	water (food: onion)	Literature corpus	—
4.9 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	—
18.0 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	—
39.4 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	—

In air

2700 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
2700 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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (11.4725 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
rice	40.2	3.51	Corpus paper
rum	17.7	1.54	Corpus paper
fish	6.0	0.52	Corpus paper
apple	1.7	0.15	—
onion	0.8	0.07	—

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 benzene. 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 benzene in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

432 cmpds

75 cmpds

107 cmpds

110 cmpds