Does ammonia have filled #pi# orbitals if it doesn't have any #pi# bonds?

1 Answer
Oct 18, 2017

Well, look up the MO diagram of #"NH"_3#. I get:

https://www.researchgate.net/

So yes, it has filled #pi# orbitals. Any #pi# orbital is doubly-degenerate, meaning that there are two identical energies. The HOMO-1 here are your two #pi# bonding molecular orbitals.

Note that they aren't really making #pi# bonds.

The HOMO-2 and HOMO-1 orbitals are what were involved in making the three #sp^3# bonds with the surrounding #"H"# atoms. The HOMO holds the nonbonding (slightly bonding) pair of electrons.