Organic Synthesis

Research undertaken in this area is mainly focused on the synthesis of energetic materials.

Topics of research include:

The development of new routes to established secondary explosives.
Synthetic studies related to the new secondary explosives CL-20 and FOX-7.
The development of nitration reactions.
The recrystallisation of secondary explosives and the investigation of their morphologies.
The determination of the heats of formation of energetic materials via bomb calorimetric studies.
The investigation of synthetic routes to organic ‘improvised’ explosives and their characterisation.
Pressure reactions using a 400-2000ml capacity pressure reactor.
The Centre provides custom synthesis of 10-100g quantities of organic chemicals.