Recent progress in green primary explosives: Synthesis, structure, and performances

In recent years, green primary explosives combining high performance with environmental friendliness have emerged as a focal point in the field of energetic materials. This review systematically explores the significant breakthroughs in the design and synthesis of novel primary explosives from 2015 to 2024, providing a comprehensive decade-long dataset. Based on chemical bond types, primary explosives are systematically categorized into five major classes: transition-metal-based, alkali/alkaline-earth metal-based, organic, co-crystal, and molecular perovskite primary explosives. This classification lays the foundation for elucidating the structures and performances of various systems, particularly the highly promising emerging perovskite and co-crystal systems. In-depth analysis reveals that perovskite primary explosives (especially double perovskites) exhibit the most outstanding initiation performance (MPC ≤5 mg), yet their thermal stability bottlenecks urgently need to be overcome; meanwhile, organic primary explosives have achieved completely metal-free green formulations, but their exorbitant synthetic costs urgently require reduction. Finally, this paper analyzes the engineering challenges and future developmental directions in this field, providing prospective guidance for the targeted design and industrial application of next-generation safe and eco-friendly primary explosives.