Absorption of Cyclic Polynitramines in the solid and Solvated States

Abstract

Abstract Earlier work based on specular reflectance measurements on single crystals of the cyclic polynitramine known as RDX indicated the presence of an absorption band near 340 nm. Since a similar band was not observed in dilute solution, the absorption was attributed to the formation of a charge-transfer self-complex in the crystalline state. This work compares measurements of the transmittance of thin single crystals and new specular reflectance measurements to absorption spectra of saturated solutions of the polynitramines known as RDX and HMX. The results are found to support the charge-transfer self-complex hypothesis.