octane

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 45 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H18
Molecular weight: 114.23 g/mol
PubChem CID: 356 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: alkane
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 5.0 ppb – 800 ppb median 21.9 ppb · 5 published values · see all 6 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 111-65-9
Retention index: 800

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4842
GRAS publication: GRAS 28
CAS number: 911212-28-7
FEMA primary name: 2,4,5-Trithiaoctane

Reported use levels (ppm by food category)

Typical vs maximum reported addition levels in finished food. Use as a regulatory ceiling reference — verify against the current GRAS publication for your product category.

Food category	Typical (ppm)	Maximum (ppm)
baked goods	0.1	0.5
breakfast cereals	0.01	0.05
cheeses	0.01	2
condiments and relishes	0.1	2
egg products	0.03	0.3
fats and oils	0.03	0.3
gravies	0.1	2
meat products	0.1	5
poultry	0.1	5
processed vegetables	0.1	2
seasonings and flavors	0.1	5
snack foods	0.1	5
soups	0.1	2

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 5 related FEMA records for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

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.

Descriptions on file

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.

alkane shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

alkane, gasoline FlavorDB 2.0

gasoline aroma FlavorDB 2.0

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

6 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

5.0 ppb – 800 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.0 ppb	water (food: cheese)	Literature corpus	25233451
12.5 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	32625638, 24053239, 24137478 +8
21.9 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	39437307
400 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	39796379, 39824497
800 ppb	water (food: olive oil)	Literature corpus	28671107

In air

1700 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1700 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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (211.01500000000001 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
cheese	800.0	3.79	Corpus paper
milk	400.6	1.90	Corpus paper
honey	29.0	0.14	—
olive oil	0.2	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 octane. 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 octane in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

295 cmpds

364 cmpds

34 cmpds

47 cmpds