butanal

green aldehyde

Found in 426 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C4H8O
Molecular weight: 72.11 g/mol
PubChem CID: 261 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: pungent, green
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 11.5 ppb – 23.1 ppb median 17.3 ppb · 2 published values · see all 10 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 123-72-8
Retention index: 599

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match

FEMA number: 4589
GRAS publication: GRAS 24
FEMA primary name: Butanal dibenzyl thioacetal

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

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.

Also filed as

butyraldehyde

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

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.

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

—

pungent, green, vegetable, herbaceous, creamy, fatty, spicy, floral, chocolate, citrus, woody, meaty, wine_like, earthy, apple, fruity, pear, nutty, cocoa, musty, malty, bready FlavorDB 2.0

406

grassy-scented 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

10 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

11.5 ppb – 23.1 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
11.5 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies	—
23.1 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

6.0 ppb – 622 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	41700802
9.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	41700802
46.7 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	41700802
130 ppb	water (food: peanut)	Literature corpus	41700802
416 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	41700802
622 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	41700802

In air

0.670 ppb – 2999 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.670 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—
2999 ppb	air (C1_cometto_muniz_cain)	Cometto-Muñiz (PMC)	—

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 (34.945 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 10 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
tea	627.0	17.9 ⚡	Corpus paper
peanut	582.0	16.6 ⚡	Corpus paper
rum	21.0	0.60	Corpus paper
fish	3.0	0.09	Corpus paper
rice	0.1	0.00	—

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

617 cmpds

388 cmpds

158 cmpds

6 cmpds