citronellal

green aldehyde

Found in 35 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C10H18O
Molecular weight: 154.25 g/mol
PubChem CID: 7794 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: fat
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 9.7 ppb – 1151 ppb median 21.5 ppb · 6 published values · see all 6 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 106-23-0
Retention index: 1153

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2307
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: CITRONELLAL

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.

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.

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

—

aldehydic, cherry, citrus, dry, fat, floral, herbal, lemon, rose, sweet, waxy FlavorDB 2.0

green, aldehyde, fruity 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

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

9.7 ppb – 1151 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.120 ppb	water (food: lemon)	Literature corpus	31684768, 34136001, 34824643 +2
Flagged: 179× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
9.7 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	12467918, 23758650, 24031651 +10
12.0 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	12467918, 23758650, 24031651 +17
31.0 ppb	water (food: litsea pungens fruit)	Literature corpus	12467918, 23758650, 24031651 +17
1148 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	35523852
1151 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	38346996

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 (21.5 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
rum	1148.6	53.4 ⚡	Corpus paper
ginger	89.0	4.14	Corpus paper
rice	14.5	0.68	Corpus paper
lemon	5.0	0.23	Corpus paper
tea	4.0	0.19	Corpus paper

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

438 cmpds

365 cmpds

28 cmpds

28 cmpds