cumene

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 7 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C9H12
Molecular weight: 120.19 g/mol
PubChem CID: 7406 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.030 ppb – 8.4 ppb median 0.862 ppb · 3 published values · see all 5 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 98-82-8
Retention index: 1166

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

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

isopropylbenzene

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

Published thresholds

5 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

0.030 ppb – 8.4 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.030 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	25482491, 40761387
0.862 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	25482491, 36540235, 40761387
8.4 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	36540235

In air

8.4 ppb – 1079 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
8.4 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—
1079 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 (0.862 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 5 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
rum	99.9	116 ⚡	Corpus paper
tea	17.0	19.7 ⚡	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 cumene. 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 cumene in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

46 cmpds

277 cmpds

305 cmpds

327 cmpds