Intergalactic_Captain - 19-5-2007 at 08:27
So, anyone ever run into any information on nitrostyrenes as explosives? I finally managed to get ahold of some toluene - Took me 3 years to find it
OTC but it turns out my favorite canadian solvent company has been selling it as a laquer thinner at roughly 80% concentration with easy cleanup...TNT
just doesn't seem that interesting.
Rather, I'm thinking of going toluene -> BzCl -> Benzaldehyde + nitroethane -> a-methylnitrostyrene -> ring substitution to higher nitro
derivatives.
Only problem, though, is that I can't seem to find any info anywhere...The closest info I can find is on the tetryl/pentryl/*tryl family, but those
are all phenyl ethers with the sidechains being nitrate esters rather than having nitro groups.
I'm not planning on trying this out for a couple of weeks, and figured I'd see if you guys had any input on it...My gut feeling is that they'll have a
good bit of power while lacking on sensitivity - Could be wrong, though, hopefully not catastrophically...Anyone ever read about them/work with them?
quicksilver - 21-5-2007 at 06:56
Well, DESIGNER-DRUG.COM has some info....but I thought you were making reference to use of same as an energetic material. Perhaps I misunderstood the
term 'energetic".... 
http://designer-drug.com/pte/12.162.180.114/dcd/chemistry/ni...
From what I had seen others discuss, TNT is used as an intermediate anyway.
Intergalactic_Captain - 21-5-2007 at 18:13
No, I'm not intending on ingesting the stuff...It'd probably be quite an energetic poison, though. Just one of those things where I'll have the
materials and knowledge to make it, and it seems exotic enough to pour my time/chems into...The main reason is that I've never seen a nitro group on
an aromatic sidechain - Lots of nitric esters on the sidechains out there, but no nitros in the literature (at least none of the literature I can
afford to read).
Boomer - 22-5-2007 at 07:52
Interesting. I had a similar idea after seeing how fast P2NP polymerizes. If there were say 1-2 nitros on the ring as well, it would make a good
candidate for an energetic binder.
This route will make you the first hobby chemists to get a sentense for manufacture of drugs *and* explosives in the same synth!
Nicodem - 22-5-2007 at 11:54
Related thread:
https://sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4868