Efficient Synthesis of Nanoscale Cadmium Azide from Intercalated Cadmium Hydroxide for Nanoexplosive Applications

Due to its good sensitivity, detonation ability, and high-temperature resistance, cadmium azide is expected to be applied to microinitiating systems. Here we demonstrate an effective synthetic methodology (GAF-IH) to prepare nanoscale cadmium azide. A nanoscale mesoporous configuration is designed to construct azide precursor utilizing controlled self-assembly of inorganic and organic molecules followed by in situ carbonization crystallization. The nanoscale porous precursors can react with HN₃ gas to form nanoscale cadmium azide composites (CdA/SA and CdA/C) in just 3 h, which takes much less time than traditional preparation methods of cadmium azide. The organic molecules and their carbonized skeletons can act as the carriers of nanoscale cadmium compounds to avoid agglomeration, as supporting materials for building HN₃ azide gas channels, and as functional components in the nanoscale cadmium azide composites to influence their performance. CdA/C prepared by this route has favorable comprehensive properties, which not only has a high content of CdA (93.8%), indicating excellent detonation performance (t_ID < 10 μs), but also has good high-temperature resistance (T_p = 365 °C) and low electrostatic sensitivity (E₅₀ = 1.76 J). Thanks to its nanoscale characteristics and outstanding performance, CdA/C has the potential to replace CA and modified CA in the application of microinitiating devices.