Vector-borne diseases cause around 700,000 deaths every year. Insect repellents are one of the strategies to limit them. Para-menthane-3,8-diol (PMD), a natural compound, is one of the most promising alternatives to conventional synthetic repellents. This work describes a diastereodivergent method to synthesize each diastereoisomer of PMD from enantiopure citronellal and studies their repellence activity against Aedes albopictus. We found that cis-PMD is the kinetic control product of the cyclization of citronellal, while trans-PMD is the thermodynamic control product. X-ray diffraction analysis of crystals highlighted some differences in hydrogen-bond patterns between cis or trans isomers. The present paper demonstrates that (1R)-(+)-cis-PMD has the highest repellency index using a new evaluation system for 24 h. (1S)-(−)-cis-PMD has somewhat lower and (1S)-(+)-trans-PMD and (1R)-(−)-trans-PMD have a slight effect. Volunteer tests show that (1R)-(+)-cis-PMD is the most efficient. This effect could be ascribed to the interaction of PMD/insect odorant receptors and their physical properties, that is, the evaporation rate.

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