Funny this particulr subject came up just now...right after I found a printout of a journal article, dealing with synthesis of nitriles, along with some amide, triazole and tetrazole derivatives from aldehydes, in which they explore the use of iodine in aq. NH3, liquified anhydrous ammonia, and alcoholic ammonia solutions.
My first thought was 'I wouldn't touch that with a fucking bargepole'
If someone proposed running that in any lab I was working in, or wanted to use my equipment, I'd run for the hills and take cover, in the first case, and tell them to fuck right off and leg it in the latter.
Some snippets of rxn conditions involve the former, followed by addition of such things as hydrogen peroxide, or azides. And that in refluxing THF, or dioxane in some cases.
This is published in JOC, and they give a warning, a very small paragraph right at the end of some side notes about ammonium nitrogen triiodide, warning its explosive, and can be sensitive to heat, shock or irradiation.
The yields of end products were absolutely amazing, only a couple of percent below stoich in most cases, but that protocol, reads to me as though it was designed by satan himself.
Anhydrous NH3/I2? or even aq. NH3/I2 is bad enough, but oh, hey, lets see what we can do if we throw in a shock and heat-sensitive, explosive electron transport chain-targeting mitochondrial poison (I.e works similarly to cyanides), or better yet, lets toss in some fucking peroxide for shits and giggles. And peroxide in ETHERS? particularly THF, its a bugger for peroxide formation, I only buy what THF I KNOW I will need immediately, or what I know will be used up within a few months. Overkill I know, but better than becoming meatpaste.
Afterall, it wouldn't take very much at all, of sensitive primary like NI3 to form...one can imagine what happens when the whole shebang gets dumped into a pot full of boiling peroxide+THF/dioxane/ethanol were it to go wrong.
I bet the chemists involved in that research either had solid titanium gonads, nerves standing to attention like SS troops in the personal company of Hitler himself, and VERY steady hands, or in the case of those possessing a survival instinct, dived for cover out the nearest window.