A simple, fast and convenient new method for predicting the stability of nitro compounds

A new method has been proposed to understand and predict the stability of nitro compounds. This method uses the maximum electron densities at the critical points of two N–O bonds of nitro groups (ρmax), and it is more simple and faster than the existing methods and applicable to bigger systems. The correlations between the ρmax and total energy (E), bond lengths ($$ R_{{{\text{C}}{-}{\text{NO}}_{2} }} $$RC-NO2, $$ R_{{{\text{N}}{-}{\text{NO}}_{2} }} $$RN-NO2 and $$ R_{{{\text{O}}{-}{\text{NO}}_{2} }} $$RO-NO2), bond dissociation energy (BDE), and impact sensitivity (h50) reveal that the molecular stability, which can be reflected by E, R, BDE and h50, generally decreases with the increasing ρmax. The compound with the larger ρmax is less stable. For the nitrating reaction, the smaller ρmax of the product generally implies the easier and faster reaction and the higher occurrence ratio of the product. Therefore, ρmax can be applied to predict the stability of nitro compounds and the easiness of the nitrating reaction.