How many electrons are unpaired in the orbitals of nitrogen?

2 Answers
Kalit Gautam · Rose
Apr 24, 2018

#3# Unpaired electrons.

Explanation:

Nitrogen atom has total #7# electrons. Two will fill up the #n=1# level, and then there are five electrons in the #n=2# level.

Nitrogen can bond three times with other electrons to fill up it's shell with 8, (8-5=3). And these are those #3# unpaired electrons which were residing the #2p# sub-shell of the Nitrogen atom , before the formation of #3# bonds.

The #2p_x#, #2p_y# and #2p_z# orbitals of the Nitrogen atom have #1# unpaired electron in each of them as shown below :-

https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry/Electronic_Structure_of_Atoms_and_Molecules/Electronic_Configurations/Hund's_Rules

Thus, the total no. of unpaired electrons in Nitrogen atom is #3#.

Hope that helps!

SCooke
Apr 24, 2018

Three (3).

Explanation:

From the Periodic Table or other description of the electron shells of nitrogen we see that its configuration is #1s^2 2s^2 2p^3#.

That means that it has only 3 electrons in the 2p orbitals. Per Hund's Rule, they will not become paired until each available orbital has one electron in it. Thus, nitrogen contains 3 unpaired electrons - one in each of the available p orbitals.

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