n-decyl aldehyde

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 1 ingredient 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: citrus, soapy.

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

Properties

Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.900 ppb – 1.1 ppb median 0.975 ppb · 2 published values · see all 9 with sources
CAS number: 112-31-2

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

9 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

0.900 ppb – 1.1 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.900 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 5 studies	—
1.1 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

0.100 ppb – 3.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.100 ppb	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	—
0.100 ppb	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	—
3.0 ppb	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

7.0 ppb – 850 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
7.0 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—
850 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

0.400 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.400 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

Other matrix

6700 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6700 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

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	1.985 µg/L air	0.0026–250	28	23	no (3.8 decades)
ethanol solution	30.93 ppb	1.5–70.8	4	3	yes
food matrix	2.7 ppb	0.0026–1e+03	74	67	no (2.8 decades)
oil	75 ppb	0.1–650	3	3	no (3.8 decades)
unstated	2.755 ppb	2e-05–3.5e+06	160	142	no (3.0 decades)
water	2.3 ppb	0.0009–1e+04	96	92	yes

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain n-decyl aldehyde. 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 n-decyl aldehyde in it.

corn

maize

448 cmpds

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

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