Skip to main content

pentane-2,3-dione

fruity ketone Key food odorant

Found in 2 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description
buttery, caramel
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
30.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 5 with sources
CAS number
600-14-6
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.

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.

Orthonasal, in clean water

30.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
30.0 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —

In a food matrix

30.0 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
30.0 ppb water (food: coffee) Literature corpus —

Retronasal / in-mouth

5.0 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
5.0 ppb SIDA water_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —

Other matrix

16.0 ppb – 97.0 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
16.0 ppb SIDA starch Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
97.0 ppb SIDA cellulose Rychlik 1998 · 1 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 share

Every ingredient known to contain pentane-2,3-dione. 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-2,3-dione in it.

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on pentane-2,3-dione, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.