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Explosives
Published in Per-Anders Persson, Roger Holmberg, Jaimin Lee, Rock Blasting and Explosives Engineering, 2018
Per-Anders Persson, Roger Holmberg, Jaimin Lee
The ultimate hoped-for military explosive is exemplified by the compact molecule octanitrocubane, a cubic array of carbon atoms with an NO2 group attached at each corner. If the molecule could be synthesized, which has proven to be a very difficult if not impossible task, octanitrocubane would have a predicted density of 2.2 g/cm3 and an energy exceeding that of HMX.
Thermal stability and detonation character of nitroso-substituted derivatives of cubane
Published in Molecular Physics, 2021
Bu-Tong Li, Jiao-Jiao Jiang, Lu-Lin Li, Ju Peng
To date, the best high energy density compound is octanitrocubane, which has the structure derived from replacing the hydrogen atoms of cubane by eight nitro groups. Octanitrocubane was first synthesised in 1964, and the reaction path was optimised in 1999 [23–25]. The molecular density (ρ) is 1.9∼2.2 g/cm3, and the detonation velocity (D) is 10 km/s estimated by using the Kamlet-Jacobs (K-J) equation, which makes it be the fastest explosive until now. Such excellent performance mainly results from the large ring strain and heat of formation (HOF) of cubane. This situation also exists in some other excellent energetic molecules, such as nitraminecubane [26], aza analogs [27], and cubyloctanitrate [28]. The excellent detonation performance of octanitrocubane fully demonstrates that cubane is an excellent parent structure that can be used to design high-energy-density molecules. Introducing high-energy-density groups into it can design new high-energy-density molecules. Therefore, in addition to octanitrocubane [29], cubane derivatives substituted with different substituents (NF2, N3, ONO2) have also been extensively studied and exhibited excellent detonation performance [30,31]. People have calculated the dissociation channels [32], reaction energy [33], strain energy [30], and other properties of these compounds [34]. Furthermore, the possibility of the existence of cubic quasi-alkane compound N8 has also been investigated [35].