2-phenylacetaldehyde

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 7 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 threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 4.0 ppb 2 published values · see all 10 with sources
CAS number: 122-78-1
Retention index: 1041

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

10 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

4.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
4.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In a food matrix

4.0 ppb – 24.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: japanese soy sauce)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584
4.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584
4.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584
4.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: wheat porridge / bread crumb)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584
24.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: hungarian-type salami)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584

Other matrix

22.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
22.0 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
22.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584
22.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584

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.

Thresholds in published tables

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

Medium	Median	Range	Values	Papers	Papers agree?
air	4.6 µg/L air	0.00072–1.8e+03	26	24	no (5.2 decades)
ethanol solution	243.6 ppb	1–262	11	9	yes
food matrix	5.31 ppb	0.002–2.4e+04	70	61	yes
model wine or beer	1 ppb	1–1	1	1	one paper
not applicable	4 ppb	4–4	1	1	one paper
oil	95.5 ppb	22–4e+03	10	8	yes
starch or other	28 ppb	28–28	2	2	yes
unstated	5.1 ppb	0.0003–1.96e+06	162	143	no (2.4 decades)
water	4 ppb	0.0017–1.62e+04	113	109	yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-phenylacetaldehyde. 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 2-phenylacetaldehyde in it.

62 cmpds

65 cmpds

70 cmpds

364 cmpds