Question

How many electrons are unpaired in the orbital of nitrogen?

Answer 1

Hint: The chemical symbol for an element is usually two letters long. The first letter of every chemical symbol is a capital letter and the second letter is a small letter. The chemical symbol for nitrogen is N.

Complete step by step answer:
- To solve this question first we have to understand the meaning of the term orbital. Orbitals refers to the dimensional motion of an electron around the nucleus in 3-D motion. The number of orbitals can be determined using the electronic configuration. Electronic configuration is the distribution of electrons of an atom or molecule in atomic or molecular orbital.
The atomic number of nitrogen is 7
Number of electrons in nitrogen is 7
- The electronic configuration of nitrogen is:
\[1{{s}^{2}}2{{s}^{2}}2{{p}^{3}}\]
- The p orbital of nitrogen i.e. $2{{p}_{x}},2{{p}_{y}},2{{p}_{z}}$ have 1 unpaired electron in each. Hence, the number of unpaired electrons in nitrogen is 3.

Additional Information : The chemical symbol is used to represent an atom or an element. The chemical symbol of an element usually consists of one or two letters from the Latin alphabet and the first letter is always capital. There are many sources from which the symbols are derived, it includes Greek name of an element or German name etc. For example: the symbol for lead is Pb and it is derived from the Latin name of lead with is plumbum, the symbol for tungsten is W and it is derived from the German name of tungsten which is Wolfram etc.

Note: In addition to the symbol of an element additional details is added to the symbol as superscripts or subscripts. It includes the atomic number, mass number or sometimes the charge on the element.