Radiolytic Degradation of Common Energetic Functional Groups

Understanding the radiolytic degradation of high explosives (HE) is of critical importance, but it is not possible to know which HEs or even which energetic functional groups (FGs) will be used in future applications. It is therefore necessary to understand how each energetic functional group degrades when exposed to ionizing radiation. This talk will discuss results pertaining to the radiolytic degradation of various energetic FGs including: azide (-N₃), nitro (-NO₂), and nitrate ester (-ONO₂). Materials containing energetic FGs were irradiated with γ-rays and the irradiated materials were compared to the unirradiated materials using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H-NMR) and gas chromatography (GC) to assess trace chemical changes. Comparisons between the different energetic FGs will be discussed as well as their connections to photolytic calculations. Lastly, the effect of ionizing radiation on aromatic versus aliphatic backbones will be discussed.