Will nitrogen and hydrogen form an ionic compound with each other?

↳Redirected from "Find the limit as x approaches infinity of #xsin(1/x)#?"
1 Answer
Nathan L.
Jun 12, 2017

Nitrogen and oxygen are both nonmetals, which almost always indicates the bond will be not be considered "ionic".

The key thing to look at here is the electronegativity difference in the two elements. #"N"# has an electronegativity value of #3.0#, and #"H"# has a value of #2.2#.

The difference between the two values is roughly #0.8#, which is relatively low, indicating that the electrons will not lie far enough toward one element to be considered an "ionic bond". (Generally, bonds are considered ionic if the electronegativity difference is greater than #2.1#, and covalent if it is less than this.

Related questions
See all questions in Ionic Compounds
Impact of this question
16297 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License