pentadecane

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 35 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C15H32
Molecular weight: 212.41 g/mol
PubChem CID: 12391 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: alkane
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 1.0 ppb – 1500 ppb median 25.6 ppb · 8 published values · see all 8 with sources
Volatility: low
CAS number: 629-62-9
Retention index: 1500

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.

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

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waxy FlavorDB 2.0

alkane, waxy 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

8 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

1.0 ppb – 1500 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.0 ppb	water (food: apple)	Literature corpus	11302210
1.2 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	40594787
2.1 ppb	water (food: tomato)	Literature corpus	27128659
6.1 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	21404434, 36540235, 41647422
45.0 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	24594176, 36144849, 37003052
1210 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	32625638, 20858266, 30005688 +11
1498 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	37701748, 38974721
1500 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	38519512

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 (25.5735 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 8 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
bread	1500.0	58.6 ⚡	—
rice	925.0	36.2 ⚡	—
tea	80.0	3.13	—
fish	31.0	1.21	—
beef	21.2	0.83	—
tomato	2.0	0.08	—
apple	0.3	0.01	—

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

617 cmpds

158 cmpds

30 cmpds

36 cmpds