butanoic acid methyl ester

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 2 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients. Characteristic odor: fruity, apple.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 28.0 ppb – 68.0 ppb median 48.0 ppb · 2 published values · see all 4 with sources
CAS number: 623-42-7
Retention index: 712

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

4 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

28.0 ppb – 68.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
28.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies	—
68.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In air

0.056 ppb – 7.1 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.056 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	33995294, 34718544, 37515910
7.1 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

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	70 µg/L air	70–70	1	1	one paper
food matrix	37.05 ppb	7.1–4.3e+03	8	8	no (2.1 decades)
unstated	59 ppb	1–5.9e+03	17	14	no (2.3 decades)
water	59 ppb	15.1–60	7	6	yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain butanoic acid methyl ester. 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 butanoic acid methyl ester in it.

344 cmpds

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