Scientists from China have coated the high energy explosive RDX (hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine) with nanodiamonds in an attempt to make safer explosives.
The group, led by Yi Tong, from the Beijing Institute of Technology, prepared detonation nanodiamonds by detonating a mixture of TNT and RDX in a closed metallic chamber. Detonation nanodiamonds are known to have excellent 
mechanical properties, including high thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity, whilst being chemically reactive but also environmentally benign. RDX was coated with different proportions of nanodiamonds to try to stabilise the explosive. This is important as you don’t want explosives to detonate if they are accidently heated when in storage.
By studying the thermodynamics of the resulting composites, the group found that nanodiamond coatings of between 1/7 and 1/5 of the mass of the RDX led to composites that were more stable than RDX alone, but that were more reactive than composites with thinner coatings. They also found that increasing the nanodiamond ratio to more than 1/3 of the mass of the RDX hindered the decomposition of the material.
Interested to know more?
Read the full article by Rachel Wood in Chemistry World here…
Read the article in PCCP:
The effect of a detonation nanodiamond coating on the thermal decomposition properties of RDX explosives
Yi Tong, Rui Liu and Tonglai Zhang
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4CP02237H
