SmellBook
Menu

MOLECULE

nonanal

Named in 2 VERIFIED claims about 2 Atlas entries: Fresh Laundry, Cinnamon.

Where the evidence names it

Fresh Laundry

Reported volatile · the claim says “released C5–C9 oxidised compounds”

Cotton towels rinsed in pure water and dried outdoors in sunlight released C5–C9 oxidised compounds, including aldehydes such as pentanal, hexanal, heptanal, octanal and nonanal, which were not observed after drying indoors or outdoors without sunlight.

Scope: Detergent-free cotton towels analysed without olfactometry; that sunlit surface photochemistry produces the smell is the authors' proposal. CLM-LAUNDRY-001 ↗

Cinnamon

Linked to the odour · the claim says “aroma-active compounds that also included”

In a water extract of cinnamon bark assessed by odour activity values, cinnamaldehyde made the largest contribution to the aroma, among aroma-active compounds that also included hexanal, nonanal, limonene, 1-octen-3-ol, linalool and anethole.

Scope: Laboratory extracts of one bark sample; the extraction medium and time changed the profile. CLM-CINNAMON-001 ↗

Identifiers

PubChem
CID 31289 (Nonanal)
Formula
C9H18O
InChIKey
GYHFUZHODSMOHU-UHFFFAOYSA-N
Wikidata
Q419668
ChEBI
CHEBI:84268

Checked against PubChem and Wikidata on 2026-10-02 (identifier check run 37063263965). Every name SmellBook uses must resolve to the same single PubChem compound.

WHAT THIS MEANS

SmellBook lists a molecule only where a VERIFIED claim names it, in the role and scope that claim states. A molecule reported in a smell's evidence is not the whole smell: most smells come from many compounds together, and the studies measured particular samples, such as one cultivar, an essential oil or a cooked product.

Permanent identifier smellbook:molecule:nonanal · Graph record (JSON)

Cite as SmellBook. (2026). nonanal (molecule). SmellBook knowledge graph, Strategy Phase 369. smellbook:molecule:nonanal. https://smellbook.com/molecules/nonanal

Dataset history In the SmellBook dataset since Strategy Phase 369.