Oxocane high explosives substituted to explosive group such as azide (-CH2N3), nitrate (-CH2ONO2), and hydrazine (-CH2N2H3) are investigated theoretically the acid catalyzed reaction using the semiempirical MINDO/3, MNDO and AM1 methods to use as the guidelines of high explosives. The nucleophilicity and basicity of oxocane high explosives can be explained by the value of negative charge on oxygen atom of oxocane and the reactivity in propagation step can be represented by the value of positive charge on carbon atom and low electrophile LUMO energy. It was known that carbenium ion was favorable due to the stable energy (11.745~25.461 Kcal/mol) between oxonium ion and carbenium ion in the process of cyclic oxonium ion of oxocane high explosives being converted to open carbenium ion in oxocane high explosives. The value of concentration of cyclic oxonium ion and open carbenium ion in equilibrium status was found to be a major determinant of mechanism, it was expected to react faster in the prepolymer propagation step in SN1 mechanism than in that of SN2.
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