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Does Cubic Gauche Nitrogen Exist Anywhere in the Universe?

Physics Asked by AmbretteOrrisey on February 20, 2021

This question has been somewhat pre-empted by a report of its synthesis! They say “green energy storage material” (not quite verbatim) … yeah – & superpowerful explosive as well – you can be sure that’s going to be it’s first use!

But the synthesis is not what I am concerned with here, and does not count towards meeting the purport of this question.

Basically it’s a (formerly) hypothetical allotrope of nitrogen with an extremely high heat of formation – puts lead azide in the shade – possibly indeed absolutely the highest heat of formation attainable by any chemically bonded substance atall. But it requires 110GPa & 2000K; and I wondered whether natural conditions could ever possibly arise anywhere such that a piece of this could form in the first place and then survive destruction through it’s being so very very brisant … whether basically there’s any piece of it floating around anywhere in space. Obviously if it is somehow formed deep within a body of rock, is it atall plausible that it might somehow be extricated from it without it detonating? Or could some extremely fortuitous constellation of conditions arise whereby it could be formed & not have to be extricated from anything? Is the synthesised piece of this stuff the first that has ever existed?

The guys who synthesised it somehow circumvented the extreme pressure & temperature requirements. After all, CVD diamond is made circumventing the T & P requirements for that substance, and is now a standard (though fabulously expensive) industrial process.

One Answer

Personally, I would say that there is none of this stuff in nature anywhere in the universe, having thought about it for a while. Except just possibly buried deep down in something - not floating around in space, or lying on the surface of any celestial body. It's said to be exceedingly easily detonated, (although how they calculate these things I don't know - I think the calculation of properties of hypothetical substances is one of those astonishing accomplishments - do they solve the Schroedinger equation for the complete ensemble!?), and space is just too violent a place for such a substance ever to be extricated from the matrix in which it forms without detonating.

Answered by AmbretteOrrisey on February 20, 2021

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