Coordination Polymers with High Energy Density: An Emerging Class of Explosives

Coordination polymers (CPs) have recently emerged as a promising class of high energy materials useful for the synthesis of tailored energetic materials. CPs have shown potential to improve energetic performance relative to conventional organic energetic materials with regard to density, oxygen balance, sensitivity, and heat of detonation. Thus far, a variety of energetic linkers have been applied, and success has been achieved across a number of structure classes including nitrogen-rich heterocycles and azides. Here, the current progress in the field of energetic CPs, both from the standpoint of structure and properties, is reviewed, and a perspective on current challenges and promising future directions for the field are delineated. Inasmuch as structure/function relationships have been elucidated for CPs with particular applications in mind, these are discussed as well as shortcomings in experimental work required to firmly establish predictive principles within the realm of energetic materials.