Question

How many electrons are unpaired in the orbitals of nitrogen?

Answer 1

`3` Unpaired electrons.

Explanation:

Nitrogen atom has total `7` electrons. Two will fill up the `n=1` level, and then there are five electrons in the `n=2` level.

Nitrogen can bond three times with other electrons to fill up it's shell with 8, (8-5=3). And these are those `3` unpaired electrons which were residing the `2p` sub-shell of the Nitrogen atom , before the formation of `3` bonds.

The `2p_x`, `2p_y` and `2p_z` orbitals of the Nitrogen atom have `1` unpaired electron in each of them as shown below :-

Thus, the total no. of unpaired electrons in Nitrogen atom is `3`.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Three (3).

Explanation:

From the Periodic Table or other description of the electron shells of nitrogen we see that its configuration is `1s^2 2s^2 2p^3`.

That means that it has only 3 electrons in the 2p orbitals. Per Hund's Rule, they will not become paired until each available orbital has one electron in it. Thus, nitrogen contains 3 unpaired electrons - one in each of the available p orbitals.