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Compound sheet

Molecule · ester

2-methyl-1-butyl acetate

Found in 1 ingredient. 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
130.18 g/mol
CAS
624-41-9
PubChem
—
Threshold · water
5.0 ppb
Class
ester
Status
Key food odorant

01How little it takes

  • in water 5
  • in a food 11

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

02Where it turns up

  • Drinks1

of the 1 ingredient that contain it, by food group

03What it travels with

Too few ingredients to say what it travels with.

What does 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate smell like?

We hold no odour description for 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate.

It is a key food odorant (individualist): identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants, which appear in under 5% of foods and carry the signature of specific ingredients. Source: Dunkel et al. 2014, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 7124–7143

Which foods contain 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate?

We list 1 ingredient 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-methyl-1-butyl acetate in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate?

Orthonasal, in clean water: 5.0 ppb, from 1 published value.

Published thresholds

1 measured value 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.

Orthonasal, in clean water · 5.0 ppb ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
5.0 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —

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 6.5 µg/L air 2–11 43 yes
food matrix 11 ppb 5–2.75e+05 77 yes
unstated 5 ppb 1.57–1.6e+03 1614 no (2.2 decades)
water 5 ppb 2–11 55 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-methyl-1-butyl acetate 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-methyl-1-butyl acetate questions

Which foods contain 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate?

We list 1 ingredient that contain 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate.

How strong is 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate?

The median of 1 published odour thresholds in water is 5.0 ppb.

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

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Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). 2-methyl-1-butyl acetate compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-methyl-1-butyl%20acetate. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_2_methyl_1_butyl_acetate_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {2-methyl-1-butyl acetate compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-methyl-1-butyl%20acetate},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

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