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6-nonenal

green aldehyde

Found in 4 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of 6-nonenal
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C9H16O
Molecular weight
140.22 g/mol
PubChem CID
5283338 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
green, melon, watermelon, fresh, fatty
Odor threshold
0.022 ppb
Volatility
high
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Isomer match
FEMA number
3579
GRAS publication
GRAS 11
FEMA primary name
cis-6-NONENAL

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 1 related FEMA record for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

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.

Fresh, green, watermelon, melon and hints of vegetables FlavorDB 2.0
3
fresh aroma FlavorDB 2.0
1
green, melon, watermelon, fresh, fatty shown above Llm Adjudicated
—

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (0.022 ppb). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
lemon 80.0 3636 ⚡ PMID 25494537

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

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.

MediumMedianRangeValuesPapersPapers agree?
food matrix 0.022 ppb 0.022–0.022 11 one paper
unstated 0.022 ppb 0.005–0.07 66 yes
water 0.022 ppb 0.022–0.07 33 yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 6-nonenal. 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 6-nonenal in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

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Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on 6-nonenal, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.