Evident Hydrogen Bonded Chains Building CL-20-Based Cocrystals

We report two kinds of evident hydrogen bonded chains constructing two binary cocrystals of 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20) with para-benzoquinone (1) and 1,4-naphthoquinone (2): one kind is the CL-20 molecule chains linked by R₂²(6) hydrogen bonds, and the other is connected by CL-20 and coformer (1 or 2) molecules alternately through R₂¹(5) hydrogen bonds. All chains extend to the entire cocrystals CL-20/1 and CL-20/2 with crossing points of CL-20 molecules. In contrast to the unremarkable intermolecular interactions in observed CL-20 polymorphs and cocrystals, these two kinds of chains in CL-20/1 and CL-20/2 are evident and can be readily understood using the definition of supramolecular synthons. Moreover, the thermal behaviors, impact sensitivity, and detonation properties of these two energetic cocrystals are reported.