hexadecanal

green aldehyde

Found in 8 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C16H32O
Molecular weight: 240.42 g/mol
PubChem CID: 984 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: cardboard
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 18.0 ppb – 1818 ppb median 488 ppb · 4 published values · see all 4 with sources
Volatility: low
CAS number: 629-80-1
Retention index: 1811

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

4 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

18.0 ppb – 1818 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
18.0 ppb	water (food: soy sauce)	Literature corpus	17898513
62.0 ppb	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	17898513, 20858266, 24298981 +5
914 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	20858266, 24298981, 29575869 +2
1818 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	37701748, 38974721

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 (487.75 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 4 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
beef	35.0	0.07	—
soybean sauce	0.3	0.00	—

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

451 cmpds

47 cmpds

206 cmpds

357 cmpds