pentane

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 6 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C5H12
Molecular weight: 72.15 g/mol
PubChem CID: 8003 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: alkane
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 41.0 ppb – 500 ppb median 43.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 4 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 109-66-0
Retention index: 518

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4352
GRAS publication: GRAS 23
FEMA primary name: 3-Isopropenylpentanedioic acid

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)
chewing gum	0.2	1
hard candy	0.1	0.5
soft candy	0.2	1

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 8 related FEMA records for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

Published thresholds

4 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

41.0 ppb – 500 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
41.0 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	33963300
43.0 ppb	water (food: lamb)	Literature corpus	22789457
500 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	30166567, 32847084, 35327244

In air

1400 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1400 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 (43.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 4 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
lamb	487.0	11.3 ⚡	—
milk	1.8	0.04	—

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

265 cmpds

256 cmpds

290 cmpds

357 cmpds