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 ↗
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.