MOLECULE
Named in 2 VERIFIED claims about 3 Atlas entries: Cedar, Pencil Shavings, Oak Wood.
Linked to the odour · the claim says “has a pencil-like odour”
Aroma extract dilution analysis of incense cedar wood, commonly used for pencils, detected more than 60 odorous substances, mainly terpenes, fatty-acid degradation products and phenolic compounds, and found that thymoquinone has a pencil-like odour.
Scope: One wood sample of Calocedrus decurrens; other woods called cedar differ, and pencil shavings were not studied directly. CLM-INCENSECEDAR-001 ↗
Linked to the odour · the claim says “has a pencil-like odour”
Aroma extract dilution analysis of incense cedar wood, commonly used for pencils, detected more than 60 odorous substances, mainly terpenes, fatty-acid degradation products and phenolic compounds, and found that thymoquinone has a pencil-like odour.
Scope: One wood sample of Calocedrus decurrens; other woods called cedar differ, and pencil shavings were not studied directly. CLM-INCENSECEDAR-001 ↗
Linked to the odour · the claim says “were identified as contributing volatiles”
A sensory panel described toasted sessile oak with six aroma descriptors (fresh wood, fresh green, sweet, roasted, spicy and smoky), and thymoquinone (pencil and cedar odour) and verbenone (fresh, menthol and tea-leaf odour) were identified as contributing volatiles.
Scope: Toasted cooperage oak (Quercus petraea) studied for wine and spirits; untoasted or other oak may differ. CLM-OAK-001 ↗
KEQHJBNSCLWCAE-UHFFFAOYSA-NChecked against PubChem and Wikidata on 2026-10-02 (identifier check run 37063263965). Every name SmellBook uses must resolve to the same single PubChem compound.
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:thymoquinone · Graph record (JSON)
Cite as SmellBook. (2026). thymoquinone (molecule). SmellBook knowledge graph, Strategy Phase 369. smellbook:molecule:thymoquinone. https://smellbook.com/molecules/thymoquinone
Dataset history In the SmellBook dataset since Strategy Phase 369.