Chemists Build an Explosive Super-Molecule

Lockle writes "A new super explosive has been invented at the University of Chicago. It's based on an existing explosive molecule called "Cubane" but it has oxygen and nitrogen bonded to it for a bigger boom. It's called Octanitrocubane. The news release can be found at Angewandte Chemie International Edition which is a German chemistry magazine (page is in English). More detailed info about Cubane, Octanitrocubane's predecessor, can be found at a site devoted to it."

Comments

cubane.com: taken

[Evro]

Boy, them domain squatters sure act quick... s ee for yourself.

...In their defense, they may actually have a use for cubane.com.

______________________________________
um, sigs should be heard and not seen?

extortion...far, far away.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The might Jabba asks why he must pay fifty thousand."

"Yotto, yotto."

"Because he's holding a molecule of Octanitrocubane!!"

"Eee cabbo nawoooshka da babble e foto Shta Treck"

"Oh, the might Jabba says that Octanitrocubane sounds like silly techno-babble and suggests you go back to Star Trek."

What would REALLY be powerful

[DonkPunch]

...would be a Beowulf cluster of these molecules! Wow!

("Bring it on. I don't care. I've got karma points to spare.")

Octanitrocubane vs CL-20

[Freshman]

Although Octanitrocubane is 30% more powerful than HMX (high explosive used in detonating nuclear implosion devices), scientists can only make enough to emulate a string of Black Cat firecrackers.

As evident from this page and several other sources:

Polynitrocubances are still at the molecule level of development at this time and it is not expected that multigram quantities will be available anytime in the immediate future.

So for now, we are only seeing a few molecules at a time. However, 50 pounds of CL-20, which is about 20% more powerful than HMX, has been produced, and the government appears to have just finished the testing of warheads with CL-20.

About.com has links and information:

HMX and RDX

Another resource:

Cub ane Applications

I confess, i made it up!! Bwahaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I faked the whole thing. Look, everyone, the original post and most of the replies are from the same half-hour. And get Rob to check the logs -- they're all from the same IP address. If you have any more doubts, try translating the German sentences. Most of them say things like "Suck me, your mother is a prostitute." Also, the links provided go to porno sites. Yes, I faked the whole thing. And now, at 11:52pm EST, I have a moderation of 5, Interesting! And it's all bullshit!

I did this to prove a point -- Slashdot moderators are complete morons that don't even bother to read before they moderate. I used the phrase "alternate hydrofusion techonology". Anyone who knows anything about the field will tell you that means ABSOLUTELY nothing! Veinluhg never existd, and Veinluhg isn't even a real name.

This is the most hilarious thing EVER! See, I am the Chide Molesta of Slashdot past, and I've found an even better way to kill the Karma whores. I have wasted 5 karma points getting moderated up, and you'll have to waste another 6 to get me below the default threshhold.

Please send fanmail to chide_molesta@hotmail.com. Slashdot moderators suck, and now I can prove that they're complete dumbasses! Fuck you all!

Re:What about cyclopropane?

[enmity.]

Cyclopropene, C3H4, has an even higher degree of ring strain resulting from a C=C double bond, but ring strain really only dictates how unstable the compound is, not necessarily how explosive. There is extreme ring strain in both compounds, but neither cyclopropane's 3 C-C bonds and 6 C-H bonds nor cyclopropene's 2 C-C bonds, 1 C=C bond, and 4 C-H bonds don't hold nearly as much energy per molecule to outdo the energy released by breaking the 12 C-C bonds and 8 C-H bonds in cubane. Using a table of bond enthalpies, we can find out how much energy is contained within a mole of each substance:

cyclopropane: 3522 kJ/mol
cyclopropene: 2963 kJ/mol
cubane: 7480 kJ/mol

So cyclopropene is most likely to spontaneously blow up, but releases the least amount of energy per mole; cubane (with bond angles of 90 degrees everywhere) is the most stable of the three but also releases the most energy.

Keep in mind that some of the energy released is used up in forming the products of the reaction, so the values above do not represent the net energy; I'm just too lazy to track down the equations and calculate the delta-H.

enmity.

Re:It is easy for you to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, wait, I forget I am a fool...

Damned straight.

The March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo actually killed more people than either use of the atomic bomb, plus it left more people maimed, more people injured, and more people homeless. The only things the atomic bombs did over conventional firebombing was concentrate enough shock value to end the war a few months early with probably fewer lives lost in total.

And the threat of nuclear holocaust made war between the U.S. and USSR sufficiently unthinkable that there wasn't a Third World War fought over the various Berlin crises, the Prauge Spring, the Hungarian uprising, or any of the other flashpoints of the Cold War. You thought the Vietnam Memorial had a lot of names on it -- imagine if a full-out war had been fought in Europe and Asia.

In short, the sheer destructiveness of the bomb actually forced even the most militant warmongers of the last fifty-five years to see reason. As perverse as it may sound, nuclear weapons saved countless lives.