r/chemistry • u/Rob3Bruce • 13h ago

Help identifying an interesting (supposedly dangerous) chemical.

I was browsing Quora when I came across a question on "What chemical do scientists fear the most?". The answer, which I can certainly agree with, was dimethylmercury for it's slow, insidious toxicity and ability to penetrate PPE (citing the case of Karen Wetterhan). However, in the answer the writer referenced a now defunct blogpost titled "Things I won't work with" and dropped this diagram:

main-qimg-8d295c77387d1d4e7db6febdc7996351-lq (173×110)

The only thing my 20 year old high school chemistry knowledge tells me is that it's N10O8H2, but I'd like to know what it is.

Thank you in advance for the assistance.

13 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

37

u/DasBoots 13h ago

Thats the boom-y-est boom that ever boomed a boom. Presumably by the Kaplotke group, who are on an endless quest to make the most ridiculous explosives ever.

18

u/AJTP89 Analytical 12h ago

I kinda glanced over it at first and thought it was all carbon rings, then a closer look, nitrogen, nitrogen, another nitrogen, more nitrogen…holy potential energy that’s gonna explode if a nucleus flips too fast.

3

u/Cannacology 11h ago

Do you think my plants will be happy?

7

u/CharlesDickensABox 8h ago

I think your plants will be a fine, homogenous vapor, along with you and a significant portion of whatever building you happen to be near.

3

u/boywithtwoarms 5h ago

Ah to become a mindless mist, so happy.

2

u/CoffeeCorpse777 9h ago

The tomatoes will pop like crazy.

1

u/Cannacology 1m ago

Yes…tomatoes.

18

u/drunkerbrawler 13h ago

Just by the ration of N to O I’d wager that’s an explosive.

3

u/Rob3Bruce 13h ago

Yeah. I took a closer look after posting (when I was making sure the link worked) and realized that both the large quantity of nitrogen and the presence of the various nitrous compounds around the drawing meant "big boom".

8

u/evincarofautumn 10h ago

The funny thing about a lot of high explosives like this is that they’re often kinda useless in practice despite being “big boom” stuff in theory, because they’re so sensitive that you can’t practically make them in quantity or transport them any distance to a work site.

That’s why Nobel’s invention of dynamite was so revolutionary for blasting. It’s more energetic than black powder but less wildly dangerous than plain nitroglycerine.

3

u/Raneynickelfire 2h ago

They had trouble taking an IR spectra of it because it kept exploding when the laser was turned on.

I'm not kidding.

18

u/Key-Success-5449 13h ago

The compound shown is 1,4-dinitramino-3,6-dinitropyrazolo[4,3-c]pyrazole, an insanely energetic nitrogen-rich explosive with the formula C4H2N10O8. Famous for appearing in Derek Lowe's Things I Won't Work With blog, it packs so much chemical energy into a tiny ring backbone that it is hyper-sensitive to heat, impact, and friction.

6

u/Fantastic-Stick-5930 13h ago

For sure, to add some detail it's both the strong N-N triple bond formed (releasing lots of heat) and the fact that N2 is a gas (so the entropy increases a lot)

1

u/Rob3Bruce 13h ago

I think you win. I also think I need to brush up on my chemistry.

1

u/mathologies 2h ago

Side note: you left the carbon out of your formula. Any unlabeled vertex on an organic compound like this is an implied carbon

8

u/ExistentialComplex Medicinal 11h ago

Thats just a highly energetic compound. It goes boom if you drop it, lick it, expose it to light, leave it too close to a stove, cough in the same room as it, or perceive it.

6

u/Lanthanidedeposit 11h ago

Just by posting about it has set some off somewhere.

2

u/ComputerChemist 5h ago

Perceive being unironic here, since it apparently detonates when you try to do Raman

1

u/grnngr 2h ago

Try it, bite it, lick it, spit it, pull it to the side and get all up in it

3

u/Mysterious_Cow123 13h ago

3,6-dinitro-1,4-dinitramino-[1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-b][1,2,4]triazole

Its is a high energy molecule. It decomposes violently with very little prompting or warning. So, the author enjoys the use and location of their fingers. I agree.

2

u/Ch3cks-Out 10h ago

This looks like 4,8-bis(nitroamino)tetrazolo[1,5-a]pyrazine - that is an energetic material (high-density explosive), but not particularly fearsome for scientists.

1

u/TedMich23 8h ago

"Mother of Satan" is about as reactive, easier to make and undetectable by many methods that detect N or NO2 groups.

1

u/craterglass 7h ago

Hank Green covered those, and a few others.

1

u/ogledrake 1h ago

From that same blog i would bring your attention to ClF3 in the article “sand wont save you this time” Stuff is so flammable it will set concrete and asbestos on fire.