Why is the electron affinity for nitrogen positive?
1 Answer
Since we typically expect electron affinity to be negative except for certain exceptions like Nitrogen, this is one of those exceptions.
Nitrogen's electron configuration is
Since electron affinity is associated with the "love" for acquiring another electron, and the new electron would be added in one of the singly-occupied
Each singly-occupied
This extra energy needed to overcome the repulsion makes the electron affinity positive.