Assay of the Insensitive High Explosive FOX-7 by Non-Aqueous Titration

A non-aqueous titration method was developed to assay the insensitive high explosive 1,1-diamino-2, 2-dinitroethene (FOX-7). The weak acidic nature of FOX-7 (pKa 10.6) was exploited in the assay method. The sample was dissolved in the protophilic solvent N, N-dimethylformamide and titrated against sodium methoxide solution in benzene/methanol using azo violet as indicator. FOX-7 samples obtained from regular batch operations were assayed by this method and the results were compared with that of a recrystallized sample. The method is simple, rapid and has good accuracy and precision.