Synthesis and characterization of 2-amino-4,5-bis(tetrazol-5-yl)-1,2,3-triazole: A high-nitrogen energetic material with low sensitivities and high thermal stability

Abstract

In this study, a high-nitrogen insensitive energetic material, 2-amino-4,5-bis(tetrazole-5-yl)-1,2,3-triazole (H₂ABTT), was successfully synthesized by introducing the N-amino group on the 1,2,3-triazole ring. This compound exhibits excellent properties in many aspects. Compared to 4,5-bis(tetrazol-5-yl)-1,2,3-triazole (H₃BTT), which has a decomposition temperature (T_d) of 277 °C, nitrogen content of 75.11 %, density of 1.69 g cm⁻³, a detonation velocity of 8630 m s⁻¹, a detonation velocity of 26.3 GPa, an impact sensitivity (IS) of 2 J, and a friction sensitivity (FS) of 240 N, H₂ABTT exhibits higher thermal stability of T_d:303 °C, higher nitrogen content of N%:76.35 %, higher density of 1.86 g cm⁻³, more desirable detonation properties (detonation velocity Dv: 9185 m s⁻¹; detonation pressure p: 31.7 GPa), and lower mechanical sensitivities (IS > 100 J; FS > 360 N). Furthermore, H₂ABTT outperforms insensitive explosive TATB (Dv = 8179 m s⁻¹; p = 30.5 GPa; IS = 50 J; FS > 360 N) in some properties, making it a potential high-performance insensitive explosive. Besides, energetic salts 4–6 were successfully synthesized based on H₂ABTT. The calculated results show that some of these salts even possess higher detonation performance compared to H₂ABTT.