Trinitromethyl Energetic Groups Enhance High Heats of Detonation

The introduction of groups with high enthalpies of formation can effectively improve the detonation performance of the compounds. A series of novel energetic compounds ( 10 – 13 ) with high enthalpies of formation, high density, and high nitrogen–oxygen content were designed and synthesized by combining gem -polynitromethyl, 1,2,4-oxadiazole, furoxan, and azo groups. All the new compounds were thoroughly characterized by IR, NMR, elemental analysis, and differential scanning calorimetry. Compounds 10 and 11 were also further characterized with single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Compound 11 has high density (1.93 g cm –3 ), high enthalpy of formation (993.5 kJ mol –1 ), high detonation velocity (9411 m s –1 ), and high heat of detonation (6889 kJ kg –1 ) and is a potentially excellent secondary explosive.