Pressure-Stabilized High-Energy-Density Alkaline-Earth-Metal Pentazolate Salts

Polynitrogen compounds especially pentazolate anion complexes recently have attracted substantial attention due to their promising potential as highenergy -density materials. Here, using a machine-learning-accelerated crystal structure search method and first-principles calculations, we predict a new hybrid compound by inserting a large fraction of nitrogen into alkaline-earth metals. It is a new stoichiometric type MN10 (M = Be, Mg), which possesses a metal-centering octahedral pentazolate framework with the space group Fdd2. This type of ionic-like molecular crystal is found to be energetically more favorable than the mixtures of M3N2 or MN4 compounds and pure nitrogen and is possibly synthesized at relatively low pressures (around 12 GPa for MgN10). The ab initio molecular dynamics simulations show that they are metastable and can be quenched to ambient conditions once synthesized at high pressure. Moreover, decomposition of this polymeric MN10 structure can release a large amount of energy and shows high performance in detonation. The detonation velocity and pressure of BeN10 are about twice and 4 times that of trinitrotoluene, respectively.