p-xylene

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 17 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H10
Molecular weight: 106.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 7809 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.860 ppb – 895 ppb median 84.2 ppb · 4 published values · see all 5 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 106-42-3
Retention index: 880

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.

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.

Also filed as

1,4-dimethylbenzene

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

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

0.860 ppb – 895 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.860 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	38933460
6.2 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	25065942, 24053239, 28602301 +12
162 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	36950329
895 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	31861730

In air

58.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
58.0 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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (84.2342 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 5 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
tea	895.0	10.6 ⚡	Corpus paper
rum	99.0	1.18	Corpus paper

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 p-xylene. 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 p-xylene in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

21 cmpds

22 cmpds

87 cmpds

88 cmpds