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Question #6539f

1 Answer

Jul 6, 2016

The central atom is $N$ $"N"$ .

Explanation:

You have two choices for the connectivity:

$N-N-O$ $"N-N-O"$ or $N-O-N$ $"N-O-N"$

The general rule in drawing Lewis structures is:

The less electronegative atom is the central atom.

$N$ $"N"$ is less electronegative than $O$ $"O"$ .

Thus, $N$ $"N"$ is the central atom, and you start with the atoms joined in the order $N-N-O$ $"N-N-O"$ .

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