Promising high-energy compounds were synthesized by researchers from Zelinsky Institute

In recent years, the development and synthesis of new organic functional materials are an urgent task. Special attention in this area is paid to high-energy materials. Well-known explosives, such as trinitrotoluene, hexogen, octogen, require harsh conditions of their synthesis, and suffer from a lack of environmental compatibility. The same disadvantages are inherent in the new generation of high-energy compounds of the caged structure, such as hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane and octanitrocubane.

Over the last few decades, molecules representing a combination of aromatic nitrogen-oxygen heterocycles and energy functional groups, such as NO₂, N₃, NHNO₂, N=N and N=N(O), as substituents have attracted considerable interest in the search for new explosives. Researchers from Laboratody № 19 of Zelinsky Institute are actively involved in the research in this direction. In their latest work, they succeeded in developing an efficient and scalable method for the synthesis of nitro-substituted bifuroxan derivatives. The resulting structures turned out to be extremely energetic and showed exceptionally moderate mechanical sensitivity, which makes them promising agents for use as oxidizers or solid rocket propellant additives.

Source:

A. A. Larin, A. V. Shaferov, M. A. Epishina, I. N. Melnikov, N. V. Muravyev, I. V. Ananyev, L. L. Fershtat, N. N. Makhova Pushing the Energy-Sensitivity Balance with High-Performance Bifuroxans ACS Appl. Energy Mater., 2020, accepted manuscript, DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.0c01162