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Primary explosives are utilized as a reliable initiator for secondary explosives in an extensive range of military and civilian operations. Heavyemetalebased primary explosives are moderate performing, more sensitive, and environmentally hazardous, posing a direct and indirect threat to health and safety. Therefore, heavyemetalebased primaries have been replaced by environment-friendly metal-based primary explosives, such as potassium complexes. This review presents not only a summary of the current progress of new-generation potassium-based primary explosives and their methods of preparation, energetic properties, and applications, but also a further comparison with traditional primary explosives. In addition, this work discusses the necessity of heavy metalefree primary explosives and the major challenges faced in replacing traditional primary explosives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]