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Ch.7 - Periodic Properties of the Elements

Chapter 7, Problem 94a

(a) Use orbital diagrams to illustrate what happens when an oxygen atom gains two electrons

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Hello everyone today, we are being told that nitrogen gains three electrons to form the nitrate and ion. Were then asked to illustrate this process using an electron orbital diagram. So the first thing we wanna do is you wanna draw the electron configuration diagram for neutral nitrogen. So as all elements We have a one s orbital moving forward on the periodic table. We have a two S. Orbital and nitrogen is in the P. Block or the P. Block. And so that consists of three orbital's. Each orbital can hold two electrons. And so to draw these electrons in we're gonna draw a half arrow going up and half arrow going down. We're gonna do the same thing with two S. Remember to each orbital can hold up to two electrons for two P. We only have to fill in three electrons since nitrogen is a third element in that P block. And so when we draw our electrons we must draw Them one in each orbital before pairing them up. And so this is the orbital diagram for neutral nitrogen. When nitrogen gains three electronic becomes in three minus as before with our electron diagram, each element is going to have a one s orbital, 19 is gonna have a two S orbital. And it's also going to have a two P orbital. So we have one S, two S and two P. As before our one S and R two s are completely filled for our two P. We're gonna draw in our three original electrons from our neutral nitrogen. And now we're going to also fill in and pair up these electrons. We're gonna draw a down arrow to represent the three added electrons here. And so this is the entire process for a nitrogen gaining three electrons. I hope this helped, and until next time.