First-principles high-pressure unreacted equation of state and heat of formation of crystal 2,6-diamino-3, 5-dinitropyrazine-1-oxide (LLM-105).

We report dispersion-corrected density functional theoretical calculations of the unreacted equation of state (EOS) of crystal 2,6-diamino-3, 5-dinitropyrazine-1-oxide (LLM-105) under hydrostatic compression of up to 45 GPa. Convergence tests for k-points sampling in the Brillouin zone show that a 3 × 1 × 2 mesh is required to reproduce the X-ray crystal structure at ambient conditions, and we confirm our finding with a separate supercell calculation. Our high-pressure EOS yields a bulk modulus of 19.2 GPa, and indicates a tendency towards anisotropic compression along the b lattice vector due to molecular orientations within the lattice. We find that the electronic energy band gap decreases from a semiconductor type of 1.3 eV at 0 GPa to quasi-metallic type of 0.6 eV at 45 GPa. The extensive intermolecular hydrogen bonds involving the oxide (-NO) and dioxide (-NO2) interactions with the amine (-NH2) group showed enhanced interactions with increasing pressure that should be discernible in the mid IR spectral region. We do not find evidence for structural phase transitions or chemically induced transformations within the pressure range of our study. The gas phase heat of formation is calculated at the G4 level of theory to be 22.48 kcal/mol, while we obtain 25.92 kcal/mol using the ccCA-PS3 method. Density functional theory calculations of the crystal and the gas phases provided an estimate for the heat of sublimation of 32.4 kcal/mol. We thus determine the room-temperature solid heat of formation of LLM-105 to be -9.9 or -6.5 kcal/mol based on the G4 or ccCA-PS3 methods, respectively.

Ultrafast detonation of hydrazoic acid (HN3).

The fastest self-sustained chemical reactions in nature occur during detonation of energetic materials where reactions are thought to occur on nanosecond or longer time scales in carbon-containing materials. Here we perform the first atomistic simulation of an azide energetic material, HN3, from the beginning to the end of the chemical evolution and find that the time scale for complete decomposition is a mere 10 ps, orders of magnitude shorter than that of secondary explosives and approaching the fundamental limiting time scale for chemistry; i.e., vibrational time scale. We study several consequences of the short time scale including a state of vibrational disequilibrium induced by the fast transformations.

Ultrafast shock compression and shock-induced decomposition of 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene subjected to a subnanosecond-duration shock: an analysis of decomposition products.

Shock compression studies of pressed and confined ultrafine 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) powder were conducted using ultrashort ~300 ps, ~50 GPa shock waves. The recovered decomposition products were characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. A substantial amount of shock-related chemistry was observed. Approximately 75% of the nitrogen atoms were liberated as gas-phase species, along with ~33% of the oxygen atoms, as a result of the applied shock. Furthermore, we observe C 1s binding energies suggesting the formation of sp(3) hybridized amorphous carbon. For comparison, a carbon nitride material was also prepared and characterized by thermally pyrolizing TATB. The shock-compressed TATB and the thermally pyrolized TATB are qualitatively different, suggesting that, carbon nitrides, a possible indicator of nitrogen-rich heterocycles precursors, are not a major product class for strongly overdriven shock conditions. These experimental conditions were, however, not detonation conditions, and the possible formation of nitrogen-rich heterocycles in actual detonations still exists.

Nitrogen-rich heterocycles as reactivity retardants in shocked insensitive explosives.

We report the first quantum-based multiscale simulations to study the reactivity of shocked perfect crystals of the insensitive energetic material triaminotrinitrobenzene (TATB). Tracking chemical transformations of TATB experiencing overdriven shock speeds of 9 km/s for up to 0.43 ns and 10 km/s for up to 0.2 ns reveal high concentrations of nitrogen-rich heterocyclic clusters. Further reactivity of TATB toward the final decomposition products of fluid N(2) and solid carbon is inhibited due to the formation of these heterocycles. Our results thus suggest a new mechanism for carbon-rich explosive materials that precedes the slow diffusion-limited process of forming the bulk solid from carbon clusters and provide fundamental insight at the atomistic level into the long reaction zone of shocked TATB.

Flash ignition and initiation of explosives-nanotubes mixture.

Optical ignition and initiation of energetic materials could thus far be only accomplished through lasers, with specific characteristics of high power, pulse length, wavelength, and a small target area that greatly inhibit their applications. Here, we report that an ignition and an initiation process, further leading to actual detonation, does occur for energetic materials in lax contact with carbon nanotubes that are prone to opto-thermal activity via a conventional flashbulb. Our results show that, for the first time, optical initiation of energetic materials is possible on a large surface area and using ordinary light intensity of several W/cm2. The implication is that energetic materials mixed with optically active nanotubes could be new ideal candidates for safety apparatus, such as the firing of bolts on space shuttle rockets and aircraft exit doors.

Polymerization of formic acid under high pressure.

We report Raman, infrared, and x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, along with ab initio calculations on formic acid (FA) under pressure up to 50 GPa. We find an infinite chain Pna2(1) structure to be a high-pressure phase at room temperature. Our data indicate the symmetrization and a partially covalent character of the intrachain hydrogen bonds above approximately 20 GPa. Raman spectra and XRD patterns indicate a loss of long-range order at pressures above 40 GPa, with a large hysteresis upon decompression. We attribute this behavior to a three-dimensional polymerization of FA.

Excitations, optical absorption spectra, and optical excitonic gaps of heterofullerenes. I. C60, C59N+, and C48N12: theory and experiment.

Low-energy excitations and optical absorption spectrum of C(60) are computed by using time-dependent (TD) Hartree-Fock, TD-density functional theory (TD-DFT), TD DFT-based tight-binding (TD-DFT-TB), and a semiempirical Zerner intermediate neglect of diatomic differential overlap method. A detailed comparison of experiment and theory for the excitation energies, optical gap, and absorption spectrum of C(60) is presented. It is found that electron correlations and correlation of excitations play important roles in accurately assigning the spectral features of C(60), and that the TD-DFT method with nonhybrid functionals or a local spin density approximation leads to more accurate excitation energies than with hybrid functionals. The level of agreement between theory and experiment for C(60) justifies similar calculations of the excitations and optical absorption spectrum of a monomeric azafullerene cation C(59)N(+), to serve as a spectroscopy reference for the characterization of carborane anion salts. Although it is an isoelectronic analogue to C(60), C(59)N(+) exhibits distinguishing spectral features different from C(60): (1) the first singlet is dipole-allowed and the optical gap is redshifted by 1.44 eV; (2) several weaker absorption maxima occur in the visible region; (3) the transient triplet-triplet absorption at 1.60 eV (775 nm) is much broader and the decay of the triplet state is much faster. The calculated spectra of C(59)N(+) characterize and explain well the measured ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) and transient absorption spectra of the carborane anion salt [C(59)N][Ag(CB(11)H(6)Cl(6))(2)] [Kim et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125, 4024 (2003)]. For the most stable isomer of C(48)N(12), we predict that the first singlet is dipole-allowed, the optical gap is redshifted by 1.22 eV relative to that of C(60), and optical absorption maxima occur at 585, 528, 443, 363, 340, 314, and 303 nm. We point out that the characterization of the UV-vis and transient absorption spectra of C(48)N(12) isomers is helpful in distinguishing the isomer structures required for applications in molecular electronics. For C(59)N(+) and C(48)N(12) as well as C(60), TD-DFT-TB yields reasonable agreement with TD-DFT calculations at a highly reduced cost. Our study suggests that C(60), C(59)N(+), and C(48)N(12), which differ in their optical gaps, have potential applications in polymer science, biology, and medicine as single-molecule fluorescent probes, in photovoltaics as the n-type emitter and/or p-type base of a p-n junction solar cell, and in nanoelectronics as fluorescence-based sensors and switches.

Early chemistry in hot and dense nitromethane: molecular dynamics simulations.

We report density functional molecular dynamic simulations to determine the early chemical events of hot (T=3000 K) and dense (rho=1.97 g/cm(3), V/V(0)=0.68) nitromethane (CH(3)NO(2)). The first step in the decomposition process is an intermolecular proton abstraction mechanism that leads to the formation of CH(3)NO(2)H(+) and the aci ion H(2)CNO(2) (-). This event is also confirmed to occur in a fast annealing simulation to a final temperature of 4000 K at rho=2.20 g/cm(3). An intramolecular hydrogen transfer that transforms nitromethane into the aci acid form, CH(2)NO(2)H, accompanies this event. To our knowledge, this is the first confirmation of chemical reactivity with bond selectivity for an energetic material near the Chapman-Jouget state of the fully reacted material. We also report the decomposition mechanism followed up to the formation of H(2)O as the first stable product. We note that similarities in the global features of reactants, intermediates, and products of the reacting fluid seem to indicate a threshold for similar chemistry in the range of high densities and temperatures reported herein.

Prediction of extended aromaticity for a novel C(48)N(12) azafullerene structure.

We report the existence of a novel C48N12 molecular structure to the recently reported thin-film formation of nano-onions of carbon and nitrogen with similar composition [Phys. Rev. Lett. 2001, 87, 225503]. An extended local aromaticity of eight all-carbon hexagonal rings is the driving force toward the maximum stability of this molecule, which is found to be 13.1 kcal/mol energetically more stable at the B3LYP/6-31G* level of theory than the recently reported structure [Chem. Phys. Lett. 2001, 340, 227]. The extended region of electron delocalization enhances the stability of this molecule via resonance energy contribution. On the basis of HUMO-LUMO gap of 2.74 eV, the new material is predicted to be an insulator.