Right on target: using plants and microbes to remediate explosives

After a century of incremental research, technological advances, coupled with a need for sustainable crop yield increases, have reinvigorated the study of beneficial plant-microbe interactions with attention focused on how microbiomes alter plant phenotypes. We review recent advances in plant microbiome research, and describe potential applications for increasing crop productivity. The phylogenetic diversity of plant microbiomes is increasingly well characterized, and their functional diversity is becoming more accessible. Large culture collections are available for controlled experimentation, with more to come. Genetic resources are being brought to bear on questions of microbiome function. We expect that microbial amendments of varying complexities will expose rules governing beneficial plant-microbe interactions contributing to plant growth promotion and disease resistance, enabling more sustainable agriculture.

Energetic materials such as explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics are widely used for both civilian and military explosives applications. The present review focuses briefly on the synthesis aspects and some of the physico-chemical properties of energetic materials of the class: (a) aminopyridine-N-oxides, (b) energetic azides, (c) high nitrogen content energetic materials, (d) imidazoles, (e) insensitive energetic materials, (f) oxidizers, (g) nitramines, (h) nitrate esters and (i) thermally stable explosives. A brief comment is also made on the emerging nitration concepts. This paper also reviews work done on primary explosives of current and futuristic interest based on energetic co-ordination compounds. Lead-free co-ordination compounds are the candidates of tomorrow's choice in view of their additional advantage of being eco-friendly. Another desirable attribute of lead free class of energetic compounds is the presence of almost equivalent quantity of fuel and oxidizer moieties. These compounds may find wide spectrum of futuristic applications in the area of energetic materials. The over all aim of the high energy materials research community is to develop the more powerful energetic materials/explosive formulations/propellant formulations in comparison to currently known benchmark materials/compositions. Therefore, an attempt is also made to highlight the important contributions made by the various researchers in the frontier areas energetic ballistic modifiers, energetic binders and energetic plasticizers.