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Compound sheet

Aroma molecule · aldehyde

2-hexanal

Smells ofgreen, apple, fatty, aldehydic

Found in 2 ingredients. We hold no measured concentration for it in any of them yet, so we cannot say where it is strong enough to smell.

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Formula
—
Mass
100.16 g/mol
CAS
505-57-7
PubChem
—
Threshold · a food
104 ppb
Class
aldehyde
Status
Aroma-active

01How little it takes

  • in water 560
  • in a food 115
  • in oilpapers disagree 98

ppb, log scale · tick = median of published values, bar = full range, from open-access paper tables (not reviewed)

02Where it turns up

  • Meat & fish1
  • Grains, nuts & fats1

of the 2 ingredients that contain it, by food group

03What it travels with

Too few ingredients to say what it travels with.

What does 2-hexanal smell like?

Sources describe it as green, apple, fatty, aldehydic.

How this molecule is described

  • fruity, woody, menthol, rose, green FlavorDB 2.0
  • apple, burnt, chocolate, chemical FlavorDB 2.0
  • green, apple, fatty, aldehydic shown above Llm Adjudicated
  • chemical Flavordb Odor Column
  • fruity, woody, menthol Flavordb Odor Column
  • rose Flavordb Odor Column

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is replication (one source copied onto many ingredients scores high), not corroboration.

Which foods contain 2-hexanal?

We list 2 ingredients that contain it, but presence is not the same as smell. What matters is how much is there compared with how little it takes to notice it. That ratio is the odour activity value (OAV): above 1, you can smell it.

Found in

Measured foods first, then real food profiles, then thin or composite records (marked). The figure beside each is how many compounds that ingredient has in total, not the amount of 2-hexanal in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 2-hexanal?

In a food matrix: 17.0 ppb to 190 ppb, median 104 ppb, from 2 published values.

Published thresholds

2 measured values from the literature, grouped by what was measured: a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted, or measured in a real food are different quantities and are not pooled.

In a food matrix · 17.0 ppb–190 ppb ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
17.0 ppb water (food: goat milk) Literature corpus —
190 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus —

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium’s licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted, so every number here traces to a citable source.

Thresholds in published tables

MediumMedianRangeValuesPapersPapers agree?
air 266.7 µg/L air 24–1.15e+03 52 yes
food matrix 115 ppb 8.2–560 66 yes
oil 98 ppb 98–98 11 one paper
unstated 329 ppb 6.8–8.7e+04 1211 no (2.6 decades)
water 560 ppb 560–560 22 yes

Numbers printed in open-access papers, grouped by the medium the table states. Median and full range; “agree” means two or more papers whose middle 80% of values sit within 100×. Not reviewed.

Is 2-hexanal safe to eat?

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1–33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound or its other names. It may still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA); check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

2-hexanal questions

What does 2-hexanal smell like?

Sources describe 2-hexanal as green, apple, fatty and aldehydic.

Which foods contain 2-hexanal?

We list 2 ingredients that contain 2-hexanal.

How strong is 2-hexanal?

The median of 2 published odour thresholds in a food is 104 ppb (range 17.0 to 190 ppb).

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

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

Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). 2-hexanal compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-hexanal. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_2_hexanal_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {2-hexanal compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-hexanal},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.