NH4 is a polyatomic ions its net charge is 1+ but its total no.of protons is 11 and electrons is 11 but net charge is 1+? iam confused!!!!

2 Answers
anor277
May 14, 2018

You gots #4xxH^+# and #1xxN^(3-)#...

Explanation:

And so you got #{7+4}*"protonic charges"# .....

but #{7+3}*"electronic charges"#

And so THERE is ONE PROTONIC charge EXTRA...the which we conceive to lie on the quaternized nitrogen...#stackrel(+)NH_4#...and thus the #"NET ELECTRONIC CHARGE"-=+1#

Truong-Son N.
May 14, 2018

Well, no... one hydrogen has zero electrons...

I think of it as ammonia reacting with hydronium cation as a Lewis base, i.e. an electron pair donor. For simplicity, how about ammonia reacting with a proton?

We have that ammonia, #"NH"_3#, comes with #2# valence electrons per bond, #2# valence nonbonding electrons (the lone pair), and #2# core electrons in nitrogen atom, for a total of #bb(10)# electrons in #"NH"_3#.

Those two nonbonding electrons are donated to #"H"^(+)#... #"H"^(+)# has zero electrons, so it contributes zero to #"NH"_4^(+)# and still gets a free ride.

Thus, #"NH"_4^(+)# has #11# protons and #10# electrons:

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