Fun with nitrogenated chemicals. And miraculously without unplanned detonation!

The experimental section of the paper is worth a read, and again, you can tell that Matzger’s group has good technique because everyone made it intact to the writing of the manuscript. There are pictures of the crystals themselves, which are very nice, until you realize that they’re plotting to blow you into the ceiling crawl space at the first opportunity. It says that “no unplanned detonations were encountered” during the work, which is a nice distinction. For most of us in the lab, every detonation has a spontaneous zing to it, a je ne sais quoi that you really just have to experience, because words are insufficient. It expands your horizons while it expands your fume hood, and if the sensation is not to your taste, you may find yourself expanding your employment possibilities to, say, a relaxing job wrangling Komodo dragons for the better class of pet store. I might consider that myself if I had to repeat this paper – I don’t want any CL-20 (pretty sure about that), I don’t want to handle any 98% hydrogen peroxide (very sure about that indeed), and once I’ve crystallized the two together, which is the sort of thing most people would consider a very unfortunate accident, I most definitely do not want to take the powder X-ray diffraction spectrum of the stuff by “finely grinding and packing the material” into a sample holder. Who the hell got to be the first person to try that, and what were they wearing while they did it?