octadecanal

green aldehyde

Found in 3 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C18H36O
Molecular weight: 268.5 g/mol
PubChem CID: 12533 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 1.3 ppb – 2022 ppb median 39.1 ppb · 5 published values · see all 5 with sources
Volatility: low
CAS number: 638-66-4
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.

Published thresholds

5 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

1.3 ppb – 2022 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.3 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33995429, 35928166, 38638802 +2
10.0 ppb	water (food: butter)	Literature corpus	28791540
39.1 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	36950329
83.1 ppb	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	28791540, 33995429, 35928166 +5
2022 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	37701748

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 (39.07641 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 5 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
beef	82.0	2.10	—

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

46 cmpds

443 cmpds

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