sulfur dioxide

sulfurous sulfur compound

Found in 7 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: O2S
Molecular weight: 64.07 g/mol
PubChem CID: 1119 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: bitter
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 16.0 ppb – 64.0 ppb median 40.0 ppb · 2 published values · see all 3 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 7446-09-5

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 3039
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: SULFUR DIOXIDE

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

Published thresholds

3 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

16.0 ppb – 64.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
16.0 ppb	water (food: garlic)	Literature corpus	35558794
64.0 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	23443367

In air

870 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
870 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 (39.98095 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 3 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
wine	50000.0	1251 ⚡	Corpus paper
garlic	64.0	1.60	—

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 sulfur dioxide. 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 sulfur dioxide in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

wine

measured · OAV 1250.6

565 cmpds

50 cmpds

167 cmpds

175 cmpds