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Corrosion in carbon steel units of chemical, petrochemical and oil and gas plants poses safety and economic concerns. The goal of our study is to investigate the corrosion inhibition effectiveness of an environmentally benign surfactant, namely sodium lauroyl lactylate (SLL), in comparison to sodium cocoyl glutamate (SCG) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The corrosion of carbon steel in 1 M HCl was markedly inhibited by 0.05 and 0.1 M of the anionic surfactant SLL, as determined from weight loss over 96 h, at ambient conditions. X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed that SLL adsorbed at the carbon steel surface, forming a protective film that decreased corrosion. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that carbon steel surfaces immersed in 1 M HCl for 96 h had an etched appearance without SLL, whereas they retained their smoothness with 0.1 M SLL. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements confirmed that SLL passivated carbon steel surfaces, markedly increasing the polarization resistance Rp from ≈95 to ≈20,694 Ω cm2 over a 12 h period. In contrast, without SLL, Rp decreased from ≈92 to ≈12 Ω cm2. These results demonstrate for the first time that the environmentally friendly surfactant SLL is an efficient corrosion inhibitor in extreme environments such as 1 M HCl solutions. Dissimilar to SLL, SCG and SDS were not effective in inhibiting corrosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]