Nitramide
Chemical compound (H2N-NO2)
Nitramide or nitramine is a chemical compound with the molecular formula H2N−NO2. It is an isomer of hyponitrous acid. Nitramide can be viewed as a nitrogen analog of nitric acid (HO−NO2), in which the hydroxyl group −OH is replaced with the amino group −NH2.
Substituted derivatives R1R2N−NO2 are termed nitramides or nitroamines as well and see wide use as explosives: examples include RDX and HMX.
01Structure
The nitramide molecule is essentially an amine group (−NH2) bonded to a nitro group (−NO2). It is reported to be non-planar in the gas phase, but planar in the crystal phase.
02Synthesis
Thiele and Lachman's original synthesis of nitramide involved the hydrolysis of potassium nitrocarbamate:
Other routes to nitramide include hydrolysis of nitrocarbamic acid,
- O2N−NH−CO2H → H2N−NO2 + CO2
reaction of sodium sulfamate with nitric acid,
and reaction of dinitrogen pentoxide with two equivalents of ammonia.
- N2O5 + 2 NH3 → H2N−NO2 + [NH4]+NO−3
03Organic nitramides
Also called nitramines, organic nitramides are important explosives. They are prepared by nitrolysis of hexamethylenetetramine.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Nitramide”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Nitramide-resonance-2D.png by Ben Mills, Public domain
- RDX.svg by Snubcube, Public domain
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