A straight-chain saturated fatty acid that is heptane in which one of the hydrogens of a terminal methyl group has been replaced by a carboxy group. Octanoic acid is also known as caprylic acid.
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This entity has been manually annotated by the ChEBI Team.
Caprylic acid, together with caproic (C6) and capric (C10) acids, constitutes 15% of goat milk fat (L. caper = goat). Also found naturally in coconuts and breast milk, it makes up 70% of the fatty acids in commercial medium chain triglycerides (MCT) and is used commercially to produce esters used in perfumery; in dye manufacture; and therapeutically as an antimicrobial agent in the livestock industry.