Theoretical Study of the Primary Processes in the Thermal Decomposition of Hydrazinium Nitroformate

Toward reliable characterization of energetic materials: interplay of theory and thermal analysis in the study of the thermal stability of tetranitroacetimidic acid (TNAA)

The thermal stability of energetic materials, being of the utmost importance for safety issues, is often considered in terms of kinetics, e.g., the Arrhenius parameters of the decomposition rate constant. The latter, in turn, are commonly determined using conventional thermoanalytical procedures with the use of simple Kissinger or Ozawa methods for kinetic data processing. However, thermal decomposition of energetic materials typically occurs via numerous exo- and endothermal processes including fast parallel reactions, phase transitions, autocatalysis, etc. This leads to numerous drawbacks of simple approaches. In this paper, we proposed a new methodology for characterization of the thermochemistry and thermal stability of melt-cast energetic materials, which is comprised of a complementary set of experimental and theoretical techniques in conjunction with a suitable kinetic model. With the aid of the proposed methodology, we studied in detail a novel green oxidizer, tetranitroacetimidic acid (TNAA). The experimental mass loss kinetics in the melt was perfectly fitted with a model comprised of zero-order reaction (sublimation or evaporation) and first-order thermal decomposition of TNAA with the effective Arrhenius parameters Ea = 41.0 ± 0.2 kcal mol-1 and log(A/s-1) = 20.2 ± 0.1. We rationalized the experimental findings on the basis of highly accurate CCSD(T)-F12 quantum chemical calculations. Computations predict that thermolysis of TNAA involves an intricate interplay of multiple decomposition channels of the three tautomers, which are equilibrated via either monomolecular reactions or concerted double hydrogen atom transfer in the H-bonded dimers; the calculated Arrhenius parameters of the effective rate constant coincide well with experiment. Most importantly, calculations provide detailed mechanistic evidence missing in the thermoanalytical experiment and explain formation of the experimentally observed primary products N2O and NO2. Along with the kinetics and mechanism of decomposition, the proposed approach yields accurate thermochemistry and phase change data of TNAA.

Energetic salts from nitroformate ion

Development of new energetic salts is the key factor in replacing low performance compounds in conventional formulations of high explosives as well as propellants. Ten salts based on the nitroformate anion and various nitrogen-rich cations were designed and their geometric optimizations carried out using the density functional method. With reasonable oxygen balance (from -36% to 0%), heats of formation (47-624 kJ mol(-1)) and high densities (1.81-1.89 g cm(-3)), the detonation velocity (D) and pressure (P) values of salts were calculated as 8.62-9.36 km s(-1) and 33.10-40.01 GPa, respectively. Lastly, the nitroformate salts studied in this work are of prospective interest as high performance explosives.

A theoretical study on the structure, intramolecular interactions, and detonation performance of hydrazinium dinitramide

The structures of hydrazinium dinitramide (HDN) in the gas phase and in aqueous solution have been studied at different levels of theory by using quantum chemistry. The intramolecular hydrogen-bond interactions in HDN were studied by employing the quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM), as well as those in ammonium dinitramide (ADN), hydrazinium nitroformate (HNF), and ammonium nitroformate (ANF) for comparison. The results showed that HDN possessed the strongest hydrogen bonds, with the largest hydrogen-bond energy (-47.95 kJ mol(-1)) and the largest total hydrogen-bond energy (-60.29 kJ mol(-1)). In addition, the charge transfer between the cation and the anion, the binding energy, the energy difference between the frontier orbitals, and the second-order perturbation energy of HDN were all the largest among the investigated compounds. These strongest intramolecular interactions accounted for the highest decomposition temperature of HDN among all four compounds. The IR spectra in the gas phase and in aqueous solution were very different and showed the significant influence of the solvent. The UV spectrum showed the strongest absorption at about 253 nm. An orbital-interaction diagram demonstrated that the transition of electrons mainly happened inside the anion of HDN. The detonation velocity (D=8.34 km s(-1)) and detonation pressure (P=30.18 GPa) of HDN were both higher than those of ADN (D=7.55 km s(-1) and P=24.83 GPa). The composite explosive HDN/CL-20 with the weight ratio wCL-20 /wHDN =0.388:0.612 showed the best performance (D=9.36 km s(-1) , P=39.82 GPa), which was close to that of CL-20 (D=9.73 km s(-1), P=45.19 GPa) and slightly better than that of the composite explosive ADN/CL-20 (wCL-20 /wADN =0.298:0.702, D=9.34 km s(-1), P=39.63 GPa).