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tricosane

woody hydrocarbon

Found in 14 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of tricosane
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C23H48
Molecular weight
324.6 g/mol
PubChem CID
12534 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
alkane
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
22.8 ppb – 2300 ppb median 27.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 3 with sources
Volatility
low
CAS number
638-67-5
Retention index
2300
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
—
alkane, waxy FlavorDB 2.0
9
waxy FlavorDB 2.0
3

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

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

22.8 ppb – 2300 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
22.8 ppb water (food: tea) Literature corpus 36540235
27.0 ppb water (food: soy sauce) Literature corpus 17898513
2300 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 31661846, 34451762, 35006525 +3

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 (27.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 3 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
potentillae argenteae herba 25000.0 926 ⚡ —
tea 44.6 1.65 —
soybean sauce 2.6 0.10 —

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

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