Chemical explosives DDNP

These activation energies resemble those found by Thomas and Tompkins (Ref 27) for the photolytic decompn of similar materials, and Kaufman suggested similar behavior despite the varied chemical constitution represented. The data in Table 8 also indicates that large gas evolution is not entirely related to a decrease in explosiveness. It can be seen that while DDNP and MF gassed excessively and showed reduced ability to crush sand after irradiation, dex-trinated Pb azide and RDX also evolved a large amount of gas but did not show impairment of sand values (actually MF could only be initiated with Pb azide in the sand test after a gamma dose of 2.97 x 107 R with a BlkPdr fuze it would only bum). The last generalization made was that the lower limit at which decompn could be detected was about 106 R... 

The sodium picramate starting material is itself explosive, but is commercially available as a chemical intermediate. It can be made by the reduction of picric acid with reducing agents such as sodium sulfide. The key to making useful DDNP is to control the rate of diazotization so that relatively large, rounded crystals are formed instead of needles or platelets that do not flow or pack well. 

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