eicosane

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 15 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C20H42
Molecular weight: 282.5 g/mol
PubChem CID: 8222 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: alkane
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.600 ppb – 1538 ppb median 32.0 ppb · 8 published values · see all 8 with sources
Volatility: low
CAS number: 112-95-8
Retention index: 2000

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.

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.

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

—

alkane, waxy FlavorDB 2.0

waxy 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

8 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

0.600 ppb – 1538 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.600 ppb	water (food: apple)	Literature corpus	11302210
0.710 ppb	water (food: tomato)	Literature corpus	27128659
19.0 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	11302210, 27128659, 29211747 +14
24.6 ppb	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	35292687
39.3 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	36540235
102 ppb	water (food: mango)	Literature corpus	29211747
263 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	36950329
1538 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	29634770, 31661846, 33850230 +8

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 (31.9845 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 8 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
tea	72.0	2.25	—
fish	28.0	0.87	—
beer	25.0	0.78	—
honey	5.0	0.16	—
apple	0.2	0.01	—
tomato	0.2	0.01	—
mango	0.2	0.01	—

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

519 cmpds

36 cmpds

72 cmpds

164 cmpds