They make it look so cubic and symmetric! Ladies and gentlemen: This is tetranitratoethane.
By the way, "tetranitratoethane" in Google Scholar only brings up this paper! No theoretical papers? Strange. What are some synonyms?
The crystal space group was P21/c, which is claimed to be orthorhombic in the paper, although it seems to be monoclinic everywhere else. The molecular point group looks like it could almost be S2n, but all I can see is maybe an inversion point.
An updated graphical abstract might look like this:
Yes, I am still afraid of nitro explosives going kapow. Also, a 1.4 cm long molecule is huge.
References:
D Fischer, T M Klapötke and J Stierstorfer, Chem. Commun., 2016, 52, 916 (DOI: 10.1039/c5cc09010e)
