methacrolein

green oxygenated compound

Found in 2 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C4H6O
Molecular weight: 70.09 g/mol
PubChem CID: 6562 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold — in air: 8.5 ppb 1 published value · see all 1 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 78-85-3

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.

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.

Also filed as

2-methyl-2-propenal

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

Published thresholds

1 measured value 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.

In air

8.5 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
8.5 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?
food matrix	13 ppb	1–25	2	2	yes
unstated	25 ppb	15–25	5	4	yes
water	25 ppb	25–25	1	1	one paper

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain methacrolein. 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 methacrolein in it.

106 cmpds

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