Practically odorless viscous liquid with at most a very faint warm-sweet impression when smelled neat. Used as a humectant and diluent rather than for its scent contribution.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Chemicals, page 605.
Colorless viscous liquid.
Miscible with water, propylene glycol and alcohol in all proportions. Almost insoluble in oils or hydrocarbons.
Commercial grades usually have a faint odor, which can be due to absorbed impurities from the outside, from the container, etc. It can also derive from catalysts, pyrogenated impurities, etc. from distillation or bleaching processes. Amine-like odors, often described as 'mouse-urine-like' are not uncommon in Glycerin made in the soap processing, while the 'synthetic' Glycerin may have odors, sometimes described as resembling that of 'wet cardboard or paper'.
The taste is sweet, and the mouthfeel is warm (at high concentration). The sweetening effect is about 0.6 times that of cane sugar.
Glycerin is a useful co-solvent for Vanillin and other Vanilla flavor ingredients, and it is used in flavors for baked goods because of its stability towards heat. In alcoholic beverages it may be used to increase the 'body' of the liqueur or cordial. It behaves like a carbohydrate in the human body, and the human tolerance is in excess of 100 grams of Glycerin per day. It is also used as a plasticizer in various types of gelatin-candy or licorice candy, etc. and in fondant fillings.
1) by hydrolysis of fats in the manufacture of soaps, etc. 2) as a by-product in the sugar fermentation in presence of Sodium Sulfite (a rather rare method). 3) synthetically from propylene (from oil gas) via allyl chloride and its chlorohydrin to Glycerin by alkaline hydrolysis.