octanal
green aldehyde Key food odorantFound in 504 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C8H16O
- Molecular weight
- 128.21 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 454 — full record on PubChem
Key food odorant (intermediary)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: citrus, fatty.
Properties
- Odor description
- fat, soap, lemon, green
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 0.700 ppb – 4.3 ppb median 2.5 ppb · 2 published values · see all 39 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 124-13-0
- Retention index
- 1001
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2797
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- OCTANAL
Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.
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.
Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.
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.
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
39 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
0.700 ppb – 4.3 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.700 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
| 4.3 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
In a food matrix
0.150 ppb – 784 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.150 ppb | water (food: lemon) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.200 ppb | water (food: chocolate) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.700 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.772 ppb | water (food: beer) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.800 ppb | water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 0.880 ppb | water (food: grape) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.1 ppb | water (food: lime) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.3 ppb | water (food: orange) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1.4 ppb | water (food: goat milk) | Literature corpus | — |
| 3.4 ppb | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 6.1 ppb | water (food: pork) | Literature corpus | — |
| 6.9 ppb | water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork)) | Literature corpus | — |
| 6.9 ppb | water (food: beef vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 6.9 ppb | water (food: pork vegetable gravy) | Literature corpus | — |
| 8.0 ppb | water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice) | Literature corpus | — |
| 9.0 ppb | water (food: fish) | Literature corpus | — |
| 13.0 ppb | water (food: mushroom) | Literature corpus | — |
| 28.1 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | — |
| 33.6 ppb | water (food: rum) | Literature corpus | — |
| 41.0 ppb | water (food: melon) | Literature corpus | — |
| 43.1 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | — |
| 56.0 ppb | water (food: honey) | Literature corpus | — |
| 60.0 ppb | water (food: soy sauce) | Literature corpus | — |
| 84.0 ppb | water (food: lamb) | Literature corpus | — |
| 307 ppb | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | — |
| 506 ppb | water (food: ginger) | Literature corpus | — |
| 655 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | — |
| 784 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | — |
| 1138 ppb | water (food: beef) | Literature corpus | — |
| Flagged: 126× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 1280 ppb | water (food: olive oil) | Literature corpus | — |
| Flagged: 142× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 1280 ppb | water (food: bread) | Literature corpus | — |
| Flagged: 142× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
Retronasal / in-mouth
25.0 ppb – 900 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25.0 ppb | water_flavor | Leffingwell | — |
| 25.0 ppb SIDA | water_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
| 900 ppb SIDA | oil_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
In air
0.010 ppb – 0.174 ppbAirborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.010 ppb | air | Nagata 2003 | — |
| 0.174 ppb | air (C2_cometto_muniz_abraham) | Cometto-Muñiz (PMC) | — |
Other matrix
56.0 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 56.0 ppb SIDA | oil_orthonasal | Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies | — |
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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain octanal. 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 octanal in it.
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