Protocatechualdehyde (3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde) is a solid phenolic aldehyde with a warm, sweet-balsamic odor reminiscent of vanillin but darker and more medicinal. It carries a woody-phenolic undertone with faint smoky and powdery facets, and functions as a heavy, tenacious background note.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Chemicals, page 1210.
White or colorless plate-like crystals.
Soluble in cold water, 33° soluble in boiling water. Soluble in alcohol and aqueous alkali, also in some, but not all, perfume oils.
This material has only a faint odor, normally not pleasant, rather medicinal, dry and weak.
The title aldehyde is included in this work mainly to supply a further background for the monographs of many perfume and flavor materials, derived directly or indirectly from this aldehyde.
1) from Catechol (Pyrocatechin) by Reimer-Tiemann reaction (treatment with Chloroform and Potassium hydroxide). 2) from Vanillin by De-methylation. 3) from Heliotropine with Aluminum chloride. 4) from Veratraldehyde.