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China has tamed the world’s most powerful explosive, military scientists say

  • New synthesising method can give five-fold stability boost to CL-20, the deadliest non-nuclear explosive in existence, Chinese research team says
  • According to 2021 US study commissioned by Pentagon, only China has CL-20 mass production capacity and has used it in some of its newest weapons

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China’s CL-20 research is reportedly closely linked to its nuclear weapons programme. More powerful explosives can reduce the size of nuclear weapons and allow intercontinental ballistic missiles to travel further. Photo: Reuters
Stephen Chenin Beijing
A Chinese research team said they have significantly improved the safety of the world’s most powerful explosive by engineering a five-fold boost to its shock resistance capacity.

The breakthrough could speed up the large-scale application of the explosive in battle, making Chinese weapons far superior in terms of destructive power, according to the scientists.

CL-20 is the most deadly non-nuclear explosive in existence. When detonated, it can produce destructive shock waves with blast pressures many times higher than other common explosives like TNT and RDX.

In a recent war game, Chinese defence researchers sank an entire US aircraft carrier fleet in the South China Sea with 24 hypersonic missiles. Some military experts believe that these weapons used CL-20 warheads.

The mass production of CL-20 is extremely difficult. China is the only country so far to possess such industrial capability and has used the explosive in some of its newest weapons, according to a US Energetics Technology Centre study commissioned by the Pentagon in 2021.

But the use of CL-20 is still limited due to its sensitivity to shock, according to the Chinese team led by explosive scientist Guo Changping from the Sichuan Military and Civilian Co-Innovation Centre for New Energetic Materials.

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