The Exciting Chemistry of Tetraazidomethane

With a nitrogen content of 93.3 %, "perazidomethane" (CN12) is highly explosive but nevertheless isolable. The title compound, which is accessible from commercially available trichloroacetonitrile in one step, undergoes simple dissociation and trapping reactions as well as more-complex transformations (for example, in the presence of norbornene; see scheme).