N‐Geranylated Amino Acid Surfactants with Low Critical Micelle Concentrations from Abundant, Naturally Derived Starting Materials

In this work, a simple method for the preparation of N‐alkylated amino acid surfactants in 1–2 steps is reported. These products perform comparably to existing ionic surfactants, with N‐tetrahydrogeranylated serine having a critical micelle concentration (CMC) of only 7.4 mmol·L −1 . The suite of multiply charged surfactants generally possesses CMCs comparable to existing ionic surfactants. Further, their synthesis is simple, high‐yielding, scalable, and does not require complex purification. The most hydrophobic surfactant (N‐geranylated glycine) was found to have a log n‐octanol‐water partition coefficient ( P ow ) of 1.6 (indicating low bioaccumulative potential), and a single‐step product (N‐geranylated aspartic acid) was assessed for detergency potential via swatch testing.