We report a simple but efficient photocatalytic nitrobenzene reduction method employing eosin Y as the photocatalyst and TEOA as the reducing agent. With green LED light irradiation, the nitro group in the nitrobenzenes containing other reducible groups was chemoselectively reduced into an amino group, and the corresponding anilines were isolated in quantitative yields. The photoinduced electron transfer mechanism suggests that the high chemoselectivity originates from the better electron-withdrawing ability of the nitro group.

The micellization of the ionic liquid N-alkyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bromide (C_nMPB, n = 12, 14 and 16) in aqueous solutions was investigated by surface tension measurements, electrical conductivity and static luminescence quenching. The effectiveness of the surface tension reduction (Π_cmc), maximum surface excess concentration (Γ_max) and the minimum area (A_min) occupied per surfactant molecule at the air/water interface can be obtained from the surface tension measurements at 25 °C. The critical micelle concentration (cmc) at different temperatures and a series of thermodynamic parameters (ΔG⁰ _m, ΔH⁰ _m and ΔS⁰ _m) of micellization were evaluated from electrical conductivity measurements in the temperature range of 25–45 °C. The thermodynamic parameters show that the micelle formation is entropy-driven at low temperature and enthalpy-driven at high temperature. Furthermore, the micelle aggregation number (N_agg) of C_nMPB was calculated according to the Turro-Yekta method through static luminescence quenching and found that N_agg (49, 55, and 59) increased with the hydrophobic chain length of C_nMPB.

The special structure and properties of zwitterionic amphiphiles endow them potential applications in well-defined assembly structure, target ion conduction, noble metal nanomaterial and antifouling biomaterial preparation.