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.