Density Functional Theory Study of CL-20/Nitroimidazoles Energetic Cocrystal Compounds in an External Electric Field

Abstract

The external electric field has a significant influence on the sensitivity of the energetic cocrystal materials. In order to find out the relationship between the external electric field and sensitivity of energetic cocrystal compounds 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane/1,4-dinitroimidazole (CL-20/1,4-DNI), 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane/1-methyl-2,4-dinitro-1H-imidazole (CL-20/2,4-MDNI) and 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane/1-methyl-4,5-dinitro-1H-imidazole (CL-20/4,5-MDNI). In this work, density functional theory (DFT) at B3LYP-D3/6-311+G(d,p) and M062X-D3/ma-def2 TZVPP levels was employed to calculate the bond dissociation energies (BDEs) of selected N-NO2 trigger bonds, frontier molecular orbitals, electrostatic potentials (ESPs) and nitro group charges (QNO2) under different external electric field. The results show that as the positive electric field intensity increases, the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy gap and BDEs become smaller, and the local positive ESPs becomes larger, so that the energetic cocrystals tends to have higher sensitivity. In addition, the linear fitting results show that the trigger bond length and nitro group charge changes are closely related to the external electric field strength.