Question

How many electrons, protons, and neutrons does nitrogen-14 have? Is it an anion or cation?

I know nitrogen-14 has 7 protons, but I do not know how many neutrons or electrons. Cations are positively charged ions while anions are negatively charged.

Answer 1

`7` electrons, `7` protons, and `7` neutrons.

Explanation:

Nitrogen-14 is actually an isotope of nitrogen, so right from the start, you can say that it is a neutral atom.

Isotopes are atoms that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus. You know that nitrogen-14 has `7` protons in the nucleus because it is an isotope of nitrogen, which has an atomic number equal to `7`.

Because nitrogen-14 is a neutral atom, the number of protons it has in its nucleus must be equal to the number of electrons that surround its nucleus.

`"neutral atom " implies " no. of protons = no. of electrons"`

Now, in order to find the number of neutrons present in the nucleus of a nitrogen-14 atom, you must use its mass number. The mass number of an isotope is added to the name of the isotope.

In this case, you have

`"nitrogen-"color(blue)(14) implies "mass number" = color(blue)(14)`

The mass number of an atom tells you the number of protons and neutrons located in the nucleus.

So you can say that

`"no. of protons + no. of neutrons" = color(blue)(14)`

This implies that a nitrogen-14 atom contains

`(color(blue)(14)color(white)(.)"protons + neutrons") - "7 protons" = "7 neutrons"`

Now, a nitrogen atom, regardless of its mass number, will always form `3-` anions, `"N"^(3-)`. In other words, any nitrogen atom will take in `3` electrons to complete its octet--this happens because nitrogen is located in group `15` of the Periodic Table.