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Musk ketone

Musk ketone is a nitro musk, an odorant made in the laboratory rather than taken from nature.

A review dates its accidental discovery to 1894. Its identity is PubChem’s.

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A model you can turn here or place in your room with a phone. Nothing is fetched until you ask; nothing is stored or sent. Everything you can place in a room.

An engraved drawing of the Musk ketone model: hatched atoms joined by ruled bonds, the hydrogens left out.

molecule

The Musk ketone molecule

A computed 3D conformer , modeled, not a photograph of a molecule. PubChem CID 6669.

To place it in your room, open this page on an iPhone or iPad (AR Quick Look) or an Android phone (Google Scene Viewer). The files below open in any 3D viewer.

PubChem’s computed 3D conformer of Musk ketone (CID 6669, conformer 00001A0D00000001): the shape a computer model gives the molecule, not an experimental structure and not a picture of a real molecule. Ball and stick: 14 carbon, 2 nitrogen, 5 oxygen; the 18 hydrogen atoms are left out for clarity. The balls are drawn smaller than the atoms’ real reach; a double bond is two sticks, side by side.

In the room
scaled so that one ångström is 4 cm (about 400 million times life size): 26.3 cm tall, 31.5 cm across
Atoms
14 carbon, 2 nitrogen, 5 oxygen · 21 bonds between them
Colours
carbon: ink sepia-2; nitrogen: a muted slate (no palette blue); oxygen: rose highlight; bonds: brass. Colour is a convention here and never carries the meaning alone: the letters on the drawing and this list say which atom is which.
Source
PubChem, CID 6669 (National Center for Biotechnology Information), its computed 3D conformer as filed on this record
Licence
PubChem’s data are public (NCBI); the model and its drawing were made for this site from those coordinates

The files GLB 32 KB · USDZ 75 KB · the drawing (SVG) 8 KB

The record

Each field carries its evidence: open a chip for the source, the quoted words and the confidence. A field with nothing behind it says so and stays empty.

Name
Musk ketone
documented

Musk ketone

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

confidence A

CAS
81-14-1
documented

81-14-1

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

among the CID’s PubChem synonyms, and PubChem resolves it back to this CID

confidence A

PubChem CID
6669
documented

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

confidence A

Formula
C14H18N2O5
documented

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

confidence A

Molecular weight
294.3
documented

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

g/mol, as PubChem states it

confidence A

IUPAC name
1-(4-tert-butyl-2,6-dimethyl-3,5-dinitrophenyl)ethanone
documented

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

confidence A

SMILES
CC1=C(C(=C(C(=C1[N+](=O)[O-])C(C)(C)C)[N+](=O)[O-])C)C(=O)C
documented

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

confidence A

InChIKey
WXCMHFPAUCOJIG-UHFFFAOYSA-N
documented

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

confidence A

Odour threshold
withheld: not on record
withheld

no odour-threshold source on record

Descriptors
musky
perfumery convention

Typically, musk odorants are sweet, waxy, and “animalic”, bringing warmth and erogenous mystery to a perfume

KLE-1 · Kleoff et al. (2022). Synthesis of odorants in flow and their applications in perfumery · read 2026-09-30

the family word: the review describes musk odorants in general, not this molecule

confidence B

Volatility class
not on record
not on record

no volatility class on record for musk ketone (the house’s volatility table has no entry)

Regulation
not on record
not on record

no Regulation record names it

3D structure
PubChem computed 3D conformer · 39 atoms, 39 bonds
modeled

PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone · read 2026-09-30

PubChem’s computed 3D conformer (the 3D SDF record): a model, drawn schematically, not an experimental structure

confidence A

Wikidata
Q1948992
documented

P662 PubChem CID: 6669

WD-1 · Wikidata (Wikimedia Foundation) · read 2026-09-30

the item states PubChem CID 6669 (P662) and the record’s InChIKey (P235); found by the statement search haswbstatement:P662=6669

confidence A

Occurs in
    In history

    Sources

    1. PUBCHEM-6669 · PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6669, Musk ketone (1-(4-tert-butyl-2,6-dimethyl-3,5-dinitrophenyl)ethanone). National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), U.S. National Library of Medicine; live database, read 2026-09-30 through the PUG REST endpoints (no account): https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug/compound/name/81-14-1/cids/JSON · https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug/compound/cid/6669/property/MolecularFormula,MolecularWeight,IUPACName,Title,SMILES,InChIKey/JSON · https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug/compound/cid/6669/synonyms/JSON · https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rest/pug/compound/cid/6669/SDF?record_type=3d. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/6669 · read 2026-09-30 · public domain (US government work, NCBI/NLM); acknowledgement requested , cite PubChem
    2. KLE-1 · Kleoff M, Kiler P, Heretsch P. Synthesis of odorants in flow and their applications in perfumery. Beilstein J Org Chem. 2022;18:754–768. doi.org/10.3762/bjoc.18.76 · read 2026-09-30 · CC BY 4.0
    3. WD-1 · Wikidata (Wikimedia Foundation): the items named on each record (each statement read with its references), read 2026-09-30. www.wikidata.org · read 2026-09-30 · CC0 1.0

    Our text and structure are CC BY 4.0; quoted source text stays under its owners’ terms.

    this record as data: /data/molecule/musk-ketone.json · version 3 · updated 2026-10-01 · confidence A