Establishment of process technology for the manufacture of dinitrogen pentoxide and its utility for the synthesis of most powerful explosive of today—CL-20

This paper reviews the recent work done on the synthesis as well as characterization of dinitrogen pentoxide (DNPO). The physico-chemical characteristics of DNPO are also discussed. The review brings out the key aspects of N ₂O ₅ technology with relevance to realize modern and novel HEMs. The paper also includes the aspects related with establishing the synthesis facility of dinitrogen pentoxide at HEMRL by gas phase interaction of N ₂O ₄ with O ₃. The process parameters for the synthesis of N ₂O ₅ at 50 g/batch have been optimized. The synthesized dinitrogen pentoxide has been characterized by UV [204, 213, 258 nm (π → π ^*) 378 and 384 nm (n → π ^*)] and IR (1428, 1266, 1249, 1206, 1044, 822, 750, 546 and 454 cm ^‑1) spectroscopy. The DSC clearly showed the sublimation of N ₂O ₅ at 32 °C. The nitration studies on 2,6,8,12-tetraacetylhexaaza tetracyclo[5,5,0,0 ^3,110 ^5,9]dodecane (TAIW) proved its viability in 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8 ^10,12)-hexaazatetracyclo [5,5,0,0 ^3,110 ^5,9]dodecane (CL-20) synthesis. The synthesized CL-20 and its precursors have also been subjected to hyphenated TG-FTIR studies to understand decomposition pattern.