Betaine like surfactant, such as N-substituted betaine, has been synthesized with long chain alkyl amine and á-chloroacetic acid as starting materials. A sustainable synthesis of an amphoteric C-substituted betaine surfactant, á-capryl betaine (á-CB), derivatized from á-chlorofatty acid is described in this paper. The reaction conditions were optimized with orthogonal test. The yield of á-CB reached 88.3% in 10h at 85^oC with the initial molar ratio of trimethylamine to á-chlorododecanoic acid of 3:1.