Hunting for advanced high-energy-density materials with well-balanced energy and safety through an energetic host-guest inclusion strategy

In the development of advanced high-energy-density materials (HEDMs), the traditional strategy of integrating oxidant and fuel components into an organic molecule makes it very difficult to balance the energy and safety of materials. Herein, we present an intermolecular host-guest inclusion strategy for constructing advanced HEDMs with well-balanced energy and safety. By gradually introducing high-energy oxidants into the supramolecular voids of the deliberately selected energetic host crystal, three host-guest inclusion HEDMs (i.e., HGI-1, HGI-2 and HGI-3) were prepared, which show detonation performances separately comparable to those of three classical HEDMs, namely RDX, HMX and epsilon-CL-20, but with mechanical sensitivities that are much superior to those of these classical HEDMs. In addition, these self-assembled HEDMs have excellent combustion properties and exhibit great potential as high-energy low signature propellants. This presented host-guest inclusion strategy shows enormous potential for tailoring the energy and sensitivity of energetic materials and will accelerate the development of advanced HEDMs in the future.