Nitro compound

Nitro compounds are organic compounds that contain one or more nitro functional groups (–NO₂). They are often highly explosive, especially when the compound contains more than one nitro group and is impure. The nitro group is one of the most common explosophores (functional group that makes a compound explosive) used globally. This property of both nitro and nitrate groups is because their thermal decomposition yields molecular nitrogen N₂ gas plus considerable energy, due to the high strength of the bond in molecular nitrogen.

The nitro group is also strongly electron-withdrawing. This makes the C-H bonds alpha to the nitro group acidic. The pKas of nitromethane and isopropyl nitrate, reported by Matthews and Bordwell respectively, are 17.2 and 16.9.

Aromatic nitro compounds are typically synthesized by the action of a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids on an organic molecule. The one produced on the largest scale, by far, is nitrobenzene. Many explosives are produced by nitration including trinitrophenol (picric acid), trinitrotoluene (TNT), and trinitroresorcinol (styphnic acid).