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Compound sheet

Aroma molecule · aldehyde

2-trans-nonenal

Smells ofchicken flavour

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
140.22 g/mol
CAS
2463-53-8
PubChem
—
Threshold · water
0.345 ppb
Class
aldehyde
Status
Aroma-active

01How little it takes

  • in water 0.19
  • in a food 0.19
  • in alcoholpapers disagree 0.6
  • in oilpapers disagree 72
  • in starchpapers disagree 0.53

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

02Where it turns up

  • Meat & fish1

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-trans-nonenal smell like?

Sources describe it as chicken flavour.

Which foods contain 2-trans-nonenal?

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-trans-nonenal in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 2-trans-nonenal?

Orthonasal, in clean water: 0.090 ppb to 0.600 ppb, median 0.345 ppb, from 2 published values. Thresholds printed in paper tables for oil are about 379× the ones for water.

Published thresholds

10 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.

Orthonasal, in clean water · 0.090 ppb–0.600 ppb ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.090 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —
0.600 ppb water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky) Literature corpus —
In a food matrix · 0.080 ppb–1.0 ppb ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
0.080 ppb water (food: wheat porridge / bread crumb) Literature corpus —
0.190 ppb water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha)) Literature corpus —
0.690 ppb water (food: beef vegetable gravy) Literature corpus —
0.690 ppb water (food: pork vegetable gravy) Literature corpus —
0.690 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus —
0.800 ppb water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice) Literature corpus —
1.0 ppb water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork)) Literature corpus —
Retronasal / in-mouth · 6.0 ppb ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
6.0 ppb water_flavor 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 0.08698 µg/L air 9e-05–90 2118 no (3.3 decades)
ethanol solution 0.6 ppb 0.12–50.5 87 no (2.6 decades)
food matrix 0.19 ppb 9e-05–140 4740 yes
oil 72.05 ppb 3.6–900 43 no (2.4 decades)
starch or other 0.53 ppb 0.53–0.53 11 one paper
unstated 0.19 ppb 0.0001–1.54e+05 123105 yes
water 0.19 ppb 9e-05–1.5 8072 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-trans-nonenal 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-trans-nonenal questions

What does 2-trans-nonenal smell like?

Sources describe 2-trans-nonenal as chicken flavour.

Which foods contain 2-trans-nonenal?

We list 1 ingredient that contain 2-trans-nonenal.

How strong is 2-trans-nonenal?

The median of 2 published odour thresholds in water is 0.345 ppb (range 0.090 to 0.600 ppb). Published values in oil are about 379 times higher than in water.

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-trans-nonenal compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-trans-nonenal. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_2_trans_nonenal_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {2-trans-nonenal compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-trans-nonenal},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

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