Skip to main content

ethyl nonanoate

fruity ester

Found in 46 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of ethyl nonanoate
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C11H22O2
Molecular weight
186.29 g/mol
PubChem CID
31251 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
fruity, natural, rose, rum, tropical, waxy, wine
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
59.0 ppb – 1110 ppb median 264 ppb · 5 published values · see all 6 with sources
Volatility
medium
CAS number
123-29-5
Retention index
1528
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
None
GRAS publication
GRAS 1
FEMA primary name
Ethyl Nonanoate

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.

fruity rose waxy rum wine natural tropical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
1
fermented, chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
1
fruity, natural, rose, rum, tropical, waxy, wine shown above FlavorDB 2.0
36
fatty-oily, fruity, nutty, wine-note, estry, green, waxy with banana and tropical nuances FlavorDB 2.0
6
woody FlavorDB 2.0
1
apple, grape FlavorDB 2.0
1

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

59.0 ppb – 1110 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
59.0 ppb water (food: lime) Literature corpus 41048468
88.0 ppb water (food: wine) Literature corpus 25939071
264 ppb water (food: fish) Literature corpus 25939071, 41048468, 41675126
662 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 25939071, 41048468, 41675126
1110 ppb water (food: rice) Literature corpus 41675126

Other matrix

1250 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1250 ppb wine (food: red wine (cabernet sauvignon)) Literature corpus 25939071, 41048468, 41675126

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 (263.6055 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
honey 10000.0 37.9 ⚡ DOI
lime 1534.0 5.82 Corpus paper
rice 1111.5 4.22 Corpus paper
sparkling wine 446.0 1.69 PMID 19216881
fish 44.2 0.17 —
rum 40.0 0.15 —
wine 12.0 0.05 —

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 ethyl nonanoate. 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 ethyl nonanoate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

See all 46 ingredients with Pro

The inverted compound index is a Pro feature — reverse-search any of 5,240 flavor molecules across the full graph.

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on ethyl nonanoate, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.