formaldehyde

green aldehyde

Found in 346 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: CH2O
Molecular weight: 30.026 g/mol
PubChem CID: 712 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 60.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 3 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 50-00-0

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.

Published thresholds

3 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

60.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
60.0 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	12692635, 25355625, 28491071 +4

In air

500 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
500 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—
500 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	12692635, 25355625, 28491071 +4

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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain formaldehyde. 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 formaldehyde in it.

47 cmpds

66 cmpds

176 cmpds

179 cmpds