Heptanitrocubane is an experimental

high explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ...

based on the cubic eight-carbon cubane molecule and closely related to octanitrocubane. Seven of the eight

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...

atoms at the corners of the cubane molecule are replaced by

nitro Nitro may refer to: Chemistry *Nitrogen, a chemical element and a gas except at very low temperatures, with which many compounds are formed: **Nitro compound, an organic compound containing one or more nitro functional groups, -NO2 **Nitroalkene, ...

groups, giving the final molecular formula . As with octanitrocubane, not enough heptanitrocubane has been synthesized to perform detailed tests on its stability and energy. It is hypothesized to have slightly better performance than explosives such as

HMX HMX, also called octogen, is a powerful and relatively insensitive nitroamine high explosive, chemically related to RDX. Like RDX, the compound's name is the subject of much speculation, having been variously listed as High Melting Explosive, Her ...

, the current high-energy standard explosive, based on chemical energy analysis. While in theory not as energetic as octanitrocubane's theoretical maximum density, the HNC that has been synthesized so far is a more effective explosive than any ONC that has been produced, due to more efficient crystal packing and hence higher density. Heptanitrocubane was first synthesized by the same team who synthesized octanitrocubane,

Philip Eaton Philip E. Eaton (born 1936) is a Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He and his fellow researchers were the first to synthesize the "impossible" cubane molecule in 1964.P. Eaton and T. W. Cole, The Cubane System, J. Am. ...

and Mao-Xi Zhang at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, in 1999.

References

Further reading