Question

Nitrogen gas is very difficult to identify because of its:
A. high dissociation energy
B. characteristic colour
C. unreactive nature
D. high electronegativity

Answer 1

Hint: We know that nitrogen gas is abundant in the Earth’s atmosphere at around 78%. In natural state nitrogen is present in gaseous form as \[{N_2}\]. The type of bond present in nitrogen gas is triple bond which is very strong and difficult to break.

Complete answer:
We know that in nature nitrogen exists in the form of \[{N_2}\](dinitrogen). In natural state nitrogen is a gas while the other elements of the nitrogen family are solid in nature. Gaseous nitrogen is inert because an extremely large amount of energy is required to break the triple bond present in the nitrogen molecule. Also the symmetrical electron distribution also contributes towards more stability and hence leads to the inertness of nitrogen. Also due to the non polar nature of nitrogen triple bond it is also less reactive.
Hence we can say that due to the presence of triple bond between the two N- atoms the bond length is small, hence bond dissociation energy is very large which results for the inertness and unreactive nature of nitrogen and due to this unreactive nature of nitrogen nitrogen gas is very difficult to identify.

So, the correct answer is Option C.

Note: Some important properties of Dinitrogen are, it is a colourless, tasteless, non-toxic gas. It has no effect on litmus as it is neutral in nature. Dinitrogen is used for the manufacture of various chemical compounds such as nitric acid, ammonia, calcium cyanamide etc. It is unreactive at room temperature however if there is rise in temperature the reactivity of nitrogen increases.