What is nitrogen inversion?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Jan 4, 2018

It's a quantum tunneling effect where the nitrogen atom protons tunnel through a potential energy barrier that allows the molecule to invert its shape. Examples are #"NH"_3#, #"PH"_3#, and #"AsH"_3#.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/

The potential energy double well can be represented as follows:

Elementary Quantum Chemistry, Pilar, Ch. 4, pg. 96

This activation energy is around #V_0 ~~ "24.2 kJ/mol"#, so this inversion can happen readily.

For comparison, a typical reaction activation energy is between #"20 kJ/mol"# (very fast) and #"150 kJ/mol"# (fairly slow).

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