A novel cocrystal (NEX‐1) of CL‐20 and MDNT is presented herein. The CL‐20: MDNT cocrystal, obtained in high yield by resonant acoustic mixing, shows new properties versus the discrete components. This is the first example of cocrystallization of CL‐20 where the new material is less sensitive to friction than CL‐20 itself, while demonstrating similar impact and ESD sensitivity. The CL‐20: MDNT cocrystal shows promise in the production of new energetic materials of interest by the cocrystallization of well‐characterized components.

Resonant acoustic mixing (RAM) was applied to the preparation of an energetic‐energetic cocrystal comprised of CL‐20 and HMX in a 2 : 1 mol ratio. We have prepared the cocrystal using the RAM technology in a resource‐efficient manner providing near quantitative yield. The cocrystalline product from the RAM preparation is consistent with the product from solution crystallization.

No abstract

Development of novel energetic materials is a significant challenge. Cocrystallization has been explored as another route to development of novel materials. However, very little characterization of detonation performance has been performed for these energetic cocrystals. A major challenge for performing detonation velocity measurements with cocrystals is that typical measurement techniques require hundreds of grams to kilograms of material, an amount that exceeds the entire supply of many cocrystals. In this work, small-scale detonation velocity measurements using about 1.2 g of material per test employing microwave interferometry are presented and discussed for a novel cocrystal of 1-methyl-3,5-dinitro-1,2,4-triazole (MDNT) and hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20) in a 1 : 1 molar ratio and compared to a physical mixture of MDNT and CL-20 in the same molar ratio. The results are compared with detonation velocity measurements with cyclotetramethylene tetranitr-amine (HMX), which provide validation of the technique and further comparison of the results. With this technique, detonation velocity differences as low as 100 m/s are resolvable. The MDNT/CL-20 cocrystal is observed to detonate over 500 m/s faster than the physical mix and over 600 m/s faster than HMX at the same charge density which is held constant in this work. The enthalpy of formation of the MDNT/CL-20 cocrystal was also measured. Using this, the detonation velocity of the cocrystal was calculated using thermochemistry to be 230 m/s faster than that of the physical mixture of MDNT and CL-20 in the same molar ratio as is contained within the cocrystal at a charge density of 1.4 g/cm 3 . The higher detonation velocity of the cocrystal (both measured and predicted) compared to the physical mixture is likely attributable to bonding energy contained within the cocrystal and the arrangement of the coformers within the cocrystal.Keywords: cocrystal · detonation · microwave interferometry [a] V.

2,4‐Dinitroanisole (DNAN) is an ingredient used in several insensitive munition formulations that have recently been qualified by the US Army. A phenomenon known as irreversible growth is found to occur during conditioning cycles of insensitive munitions (IM) that contain DNAN. A possible cause of the irreversible growth maybe the potential solubility of energetic components formulated with melted DNAN. This report documents methods development and procedures used to determine the solubility of energetic constituents in molten DNAN at 100 °C. High performance liquid chromatography and ion chromatography were used for quantitation. Solubilities (given as g energetic per 100 g DNAN) of RDX, HMX, NTO, NQ, and AP were found as 13.7, 3.02, 0.222, 0.448, and 0.088, respectively.