Is the nonbonding orbital of NH3 a p orbital?
1 Answer
MOSTLY true. The lone pair is in a molecular orbital that is similar to a
Consider this orbital diagram of
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In a sense, I suppose the lone pair is in a
- In a hybridized treatment, one would place the nitrogen lone pair in an
sp3 orbital, as seen in the above diagram. In this case, all four orbitals nitrogen uses for bonding are identical, with75% p character and25% s character. - In an unhybridized treatment, one would place the nitrogen lone pair in a molecular orbital with significant
p characteristics, and the molecular orbital would primarily belong to the nitrogen.
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And in the above molecular orbital diagram, I would be referring to the molecular orbital labeled
2a1 , which you can see involves interactions between more than one orbital.Therefore, it is not a pure, nonbonding atomic orbital.
Either approach leads to the conclusion that the orbital contains significant