A green metal-free fused-ring initiating substance

Over the past century, the search for lead-free, environmentally friendly initiating substances has been a highly challenging task in the field of energetic materials. Here, an organic primary explosive featuring a fused-ring structure, 6-nitro-7-azido-pyrazol[3,4-d][1,2,3]triazine-2-oxide, was designed and synthesized through a facile two-step reaction from commercially available reagents. This organic initiating substance meets nearly all of the stringent criteria of environmentally friendly primary explosives for commercial applications: it is free of toxic metals and perchlorate, has a high density, high priming ability, unusual sensitivities towards non-explosive stimuli, excellent environmental resistance, decent thermal stability, high detonation performance, satisfactory flowability and pressure durability, and is low-cost and easy to scale-up. These combined properties and performance measures surpass the current and widely used organic primary explosive, DDNP. The fused-ring organic primary explosive reported herein may find real-world application as an initiating explosive device in the near future.