Silver-Catalyzed Synthesis of 2‑Cyano-5-pyrazolyl‑2<i>H</i>‑tetrazole: A Promising Precursor to Insensitive Energetic Compounds

Exploring new synthetic strategies for designing energetic molecules is one of the key factors in promoting the development of energetic materials. In this study, we report a simple and efficient method for constructing a novel energetic skeleton (2) via silver catalysis. A series of pyrazole-tetrazole energetic derivatives were successfully synthesized using 2-cyano-5-pyrazolyl-2H-tetrazole (2) as a base skeleton. These energetic compounds were fully characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, and elemental analysis. The structures of compounds 5, 6, 8, and 9 were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The physicochemical properties and detonation performances of all newly synthesized energetic compounds were studied. All new compounds show better detonation performances and lower sensitivities compared with TNT. The detonation performances of compound 10 are close to those of RDX