Looking for high‐energy density compounds among hexaazaadamantane derivatives with ?CN, ?NC,and ?ONO2 groups

Density functional theory (DFT) was employed to evaluate the heats of formation (HOFs) for hexaazaadamantane (HAA) derivatives with ? CN, ? NC, and ? ONO₂ groups, respectively. This was done by designing isodesmic reactions at the B3LYP/6‐31G* level of theory, where the HAA cage skeletons were kept unbroken to produce more accurate results, and all HOFs for the required reference compounds, NH₂CN, NH₂NC, NH₂ONO₂, and (CH₂NH)₃, were derived from the G₃ theory calculation based on the atomization energies. The calculation results show that the HOFs of HAA derivatives are mainly affected by the number and the position of substituent groups, all the obtained HOFs are positive, and the ? NC derivatives have the most HOFs among the three types of derivatives with the same number of substituent groups. The detonation velocity (D) and detonation pressure (P) were obtained from the empirical Kamlet–Jacobs equations. All the ? NC and ? CN derivatives of HAA have lower densities (ρ), heats of explosion (Q), D, and P. However, these properties of ? ONO₂ derivatives are rather high and vary with the number of ? ONO₂ groups. Considering the easiness for synthesis and relative stability, 2,4,6,8‐hexaazaadamantanenitrate is finally recommended as a potential candidate of a high‐energy density compound (HEDC). © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2006