Dinitrophenyl-oxadiazole compounds: Design strategy, synthesis, and properties of a series of new melt-cast explosives

Melt-cast explosives are the most widely used energetic materials in military composite explosives, researchers have been unremittingly exploring high-energy and insensitive melt-cast explosives. In this work, a series of dinitrophenyl-oxadiazole compounds were designed and prepared. These compounds have an ideal low melting point (80–97 °C), good detonation performance (detonation velocity D = 6455–6971 m/s, detonation pressure P = 18–19 GPa) and extreme insensitive nature (impact sensitivity ≥60 J, friction sensitivity >360 N). All these compounds were well characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis. Compounds 2, 3 were unambiguously confirmed by X-ray single crystal diffraction analysis. As a result, their overall properties are superior to traditional melt-cast explosives trinitrotoluene (TNT) and dinitroanisole (DNAN) which may have excellent potential applications in insensitive melt-cast explosives.