Name: Combustion: Burning of Substances
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 9 min 40 s
Description: You may have seen a bonfire in the cold season, but do you know why the wood in the bonfire starts burning when we heat it? Let's explore.

Question

Explain the sharing of electrons in ammonia molecule.

Accepted Answer

The atomic number of hydrogen is $1$ , so its electronic configuration is $1$ . It is seen that it has $1$ electron in its outermost shell and thus it needs only one electron to complete its duplet to the nearest helium gas configuration. It gets one electron by sharing it with a nitrogen atom. The atomic number of nitrogen is $7$ , so its electronic configuration is $2, 5$ . It is seen that it has $5$ electrons in its outermost shell and thus needs three electrons to complete its octet to the nearest neon gas configuration. It gets these three electrons from three hydrogen atoms forming an ammonia molecule.

The main aim of sharing is to achieve a stable nearest noble gas configuration by both the atoms. The sharing shows that both the atoms need three electrons in their outermost shell. The sharing of electrons to form covalent hydrogen molecule can be shown diagrammatically as:

Explain the sharing of electrons in ammonia molecule.

Important Questions on Carbon and its Compounds

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