n-butyl acetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 2 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: pear, banana, ethereal, solvent, fruity
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 66.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 9 with sources
CAS number: 123-86-4
Retention index: 801

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

9 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.

Orthonasal, in clean water

66.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
66.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

2.1 ppb – 105 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.180 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	17944532
Flagged: 121× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2.1 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	37284321
9.5 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33995294, 36474235
34.0 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	31861730, 32796601, 35956905 +1
66.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	17944532, 31861730, 32796601 +5
105 ppb	water (food: melon)	Literature corpus	17944532, 31861730, 32796601 +5

In air

0.654 ppb – 16.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.654 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	17944532, 31861730, 32796601 +5
16.0 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

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 n-butyl acetate. 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 n-butyl acetate in it.

346 cmpds

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