AgCNO

Silver fulminate · fulminating silver

Silver fulminate is a highly sensitive and unstable chemical compound primarily used as a primary explosive.

AgCNO
Crystal structure of AgCNO (monoclinic, P21/m (No. 11))
Ground-state structure · Materials Project
Overview

About Silver fulminate

Silver fulminate is a crystalline inorganic compound that functions as a wide-gap insulator. It is characterized by its high sensitivity and significant thermodynamic instability, placing it well above the stability hull in terms of energy states.

Due to its inherent reactivity, the material is primarily recognized for its historical and specialized use in explosive applications. Its complex structural chemistry is evidenced by the diverse range of reported crystal configurations found across materials databases.

At a glance

Key Properties

Cross-validated computational properties for Silver fulminate, aggregated across 4 databases.

Band Gap

1.30–3.07 eV
Range across DFT structures

Energy Above Hull

0.154 eV/atom
Best (lowest) across sources

Stability

Above hull
2 DFT sources

Structures

13
4 databases, 6 space groups
Validation

Cross-Source DFT Agreement

How well independent DFT databases agree on the thermodynamics of AgCNO. Tight agreement means computed properties can be trusted without re-running calculations.

Agreement Score

1.00 / 1.00
Trust tier: medium

Hull Spread

0.000 eV
EAH spread across sources

Sources Compared

2
jarvis, materials_project

Space Group Consensus

All match
Crystallography

Reported Structures

Lowest-energy structures reported for AgCNO, ranked by energy above hull.

Space GroupCrystal SystemBand Gap (eV)E above hull (eV/atom)E/atom (eV)Density (g/cm³)
P21/m (No. 11)monoclinic3.070.1538-6.8503.53
R-3 (No. 148)trigonal2.820.7351-6.2683.38
Cmcm (No. 63)orthorhombic2.350.7441-6.2593.42
Pmmn (No. 59)orthorhombic1.300.8351-6.1683.99
Cmmm (No. 65)orthorhombic0.002.7236-4.2805.76
Cmmm (No. 65)orthorhombic0.002.8539-4.1494.67
Pmmn (No. 59)
Cmcm (No. 63)
P21/m (No. 11)Monoclinic3.71
P21/m (No. 11)Monoclinic3.53
P21/m (No. 11)Monoclinic3.56
No. 0unknown0.64
Uses

Applications

Where Silver fulminate is used.

detonatorspercussion capspyrotechnics
Reference

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Silver fulminate, answered from cross-validated data.

What is AgCNO?

Silver fulminate is a highly sensitive and unstable chemical compound primarily used as a primary explosive.

More questions
What is AgCNO used for?
Silver fulminate (AgCNO) is used in detonators, percussion caps, and pyrotechnics.
What is the band gap of AgCNO?
Silver fulminate (AgCNO) has a DFT-computed band gap of 1.30–3.07 eV across 13 reported structures.
Is AgCNO a metal, semiconductor, or insulator?
With a wide band gap up to 3.07 eV it is an insulator / wide-band-gap material.
Is AgCNO thermodynamically stable?
Silver fulminate (AgCNO) has a lowest energy above hull of 0.154 eV/atom (above hull).
What is the crystal structure of AgCNO?
The lowest-energy reported polymorph of Silver fulminate (AgCNO) is monoclinic symmetry, space group P21/m (No. 11).
What is the density of AgCNO?
The computed density of the ground-state structure of Silver fulminate (AgCNO) is 3.53 g/cm³.
How many polymorphs of AgCNO are known?
13 structures of AgCNO are reported across 4 databases, spanning 6 distinct space groups.
What elements does AgCNO contain?
Silver fulminate (AgCNO) contains Ag, C, N, and O (4 elements).
Where does the data for AgCNO come from?
AgCNO data is cross-referenced from materials_project, jarvis, mpaloe, cod.
Comparison

How It Compares

As a unique and highly reactive inorganic compound, silver fulminate occupies a distinct position in materials science where its extreme instability differentiates it from more conventional, thermodynamically stable insulating salts.

Data sources & attribution
  • materials_project — Data from the Materials Project. Cite: Jain et al., APL Materials 1, 011002 (2013).
  • jarvis — Data from JARVIS (NIST). Cite: Choudhary et al., npj Comp. Mater. 6, 173 (2020).
  • mpaloe — Data from mpaloe.
  • cod — Data from the Crystallography Open Database. Cite: Grazulis et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 40, D420 (2012).

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