Porous Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine with Reduced Sensitivity Prepared by a Solvation–Desolvation Method

A crystal engineering strategy has been adopted to prepare a porous high explosive, cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX). Raw RDX was crystallized with TMS, CAM, and HMPT (TMS = tetramethylene sulfone, CAM = ε-caprolactone monomer, and HMPT = hexamethylphosphoramide), forming three solvates, RDX·TMS, RDX·CAM, and RDX·HMPT, respectively. After desolvation by vacuum pyrolysis and antisolvent extraction, porous RDX containing micro- and nanoscale pores was successfully prepared. The porous RDX exhibits remarkably reduced impact, friction, and electrostatic spark sensitivity in comparison to raw RDX. A mechanism of the reduced sensitivity of porous RDX has also been proposed.