Tetrazole-based explosives

Agrawal and co-workers reported the synthesis of two tetrazole-based explosives, namely, 5-picrylamino-l,2,3,4-tetrazole " (PAT) (149) and 5,5 -styphnylamino-l,2,3,4-tetrazole (SAT) (150) from the reaction of 5-amino-1,2,3,4-tetrazole (148) with picryl chloride and styphnyl chloride respectively. These explosives have been studied for their thermal and explosive properties. The thermal stability of SAT (exotherm peak at 123 °C) is lower than PAT (exotherm peak at 185 °C), which is possibly attributed to the decreased electron-withdrawing power of the picryl group by being attached to two tetrazole units. PAT and SAT have calculated VODs of 8126 m/s and 8602 m/s respectively. ... 

Name one lead-free tetrazolate based primary explosive. 

Diaminotetrazole is the parent compound for the synthesis of a new class of tetrazole-based high-energy polynitrogen explosives [540]. 

Soreq [41] has developed a nitrogen-rich (31% by weight) N-based ionization detector liquid scintillator based on di-methyl-tetrazole that is resonance sensitive (24% efficient for resonant photons) and is well suited for the explosive detection application. 

In this chapter we want to discuss the possibility of new high explosives that are neutral compounds and are based on nitrogen-rich tetrazole building blocks. 

A suitable replacement for lead azide in detonators still does not exist even though new candidates, mostly based on tetrazole complexes, have been proposed and to a certain limited extent even employed. There are also some alternative approaches which eliminate toxic metals from the detonator by eliminating the primary explosive but they have not yet succeeded in replacing lead azide detonators. 

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