Nitrogen Backbone Oligomers

We found that nitrogen and hydrogen directly react at room temperature and pressures of ~35 GPa forming chains of single-bonded nitrogen atom with the rest of the bonds terminated with hydrogen atoms - as identified by IR absorption, Raman, X-ray diffraction experiments and theoretical calculations. At releasing pressures below ~10 GPa, the product transforms into hydrazine. Our findings might open a way for the practical synthesis of these extremely high energetic materials as the formation of nitrogen-hydrogen compounds is favorable already at pressures above 2 GPa according to the calculations.