Hexanitrobenzene

Properties

The stable conformation of this molecule has the nitro groups rotated out of the plane of the central benzene ring. The molecule adopts a propeller-like conformation in which the nitro groups are rotated about 53° from planar.

HNB has the undesirable property of being moderately sensitive to light and, therefore, hard to utilize safely. As of 2021, it is not used in any production explosives applications, though it is used as a precursor chemical in one method of production of TATB, another explosive.

HNB was experimentally used as a gas source for explosively pumped gas dynamic laser. In this application, HNB and tetranitromethane are preferred to more conventional explosives because the explosion products CO₂ and N₂ are a simple enough mixture to simulate gas dynamic processes and quite similar to conventional gas dynamic laser medium. The water and hydrogen products of many other explosives could interfere with vibrational states of CO₂ in this type of laser.