Recent advances in the synthesis and energetic properties of potassium-based potential green primary explosives

Primary explosives are utilized as a reliable initiator for secondary explosives in an extensive range of military and civilian operations. Heavy-metal-based primary explosives are moderate performing, more sensitive, and environmentally hazardous, posing a direct and indirect threat to health and safety. Therefore, heavy-metal-based primaries have been replaced by environment-friendly metal-based primary explosives, such as potassium complexes. This review presents not only a summary of the current progress of new-generation potassium-based primary explosives and their methods of prepa-ration, energetic properties, and applications, but also a further comparison with traditional primary explosives. In addition, this work discusses the necessity of heavy metal-free primary explosives and the major challenges faced in replacing traditional primary explosives.(c) 2021 China Ordnance Society. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).