Military explosives Octogen

Explosives such as RDX (hexogen) and HMX (octogen) are important military explosives and generally a binder is used along with these explosives for two reasons ... 

Military explosive compositions in their most simple form consist of either a mixture of octogen and trotyl, octol, or hexogen and trotyl, hexotol. By dissolving the sample in a suitable solvent (7-butyrolactone), the octogen/hexogen and trotyl are only partially reduced within the same potential range (cf. for Fig.2), and the determination can be carried out for two independent one-compound systems. 

After WW II octogen (HMX) started to become available. Until today, most high explosive compositions for military use are based on TNT, RDX and HMX (Tab. 1.2). 

HMX (octogen cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine) A colourless crystalline compound, C4H8N8O8 r.d. 1.9 m.p. 276-286°C. It has a structure similar to that of cyclonite (RDX), but with an eight-member ring rather than a six-membered ring. An extremely powerful explosive, it is used mainly for military purposes and as a rocket propellant. The name comes from High Molecular Weight RDX . 

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