Nitrogen

[Alvaro Chumpitaz 4D]

Why does nitrogen disrupt the electron affinity trend?

[Mariah]

I believe it has something to do with the three unpaired electrons in the p orbital, and the fact that energy would be needed to add an electron to nitrogen. In the contrary, energy is released when added to oxygen.

[TarynD_1I]

Electron affinity is the likelihood of an atom gaining an electron. Since Nitrogen's 2p shell is has 3 up-spin electrons, making it half full, it would not want to take on another electron because it would make the atom less stable. Half full and completely full subshells are more stable than partially filled.

[RichBollini4G]

Electron affinity is the likelihood of an atom gaining an electron. Since Nitrogen's 2p shell is has 3 up-spin electrons, making it half full, it would not want to take on another electron because it would make the atom less stable. Half full and completely full subshells are more stable than partially filled.

Thank you, very helpful!

[simona_krasnegor_1C]

As stated before, Nitrogen has a half-filled p shell. Since it is half-full, adding another electron would make it unstable. Therefore, something like Carbon has a greater affinity for electrons than Nitrogen.

[Vanshika Bhushan 1A]

Nitrogen has an electron affinity of approximately zero. Adding an electron nether releases nor requires a significant amount of energy. Nitrogen has a half-filled p sub-shell, which gives it extra stability. The extra stability makes it harder to add an electron. Beryllium and magnesium have a positive electron affinity just like nitrogen because of the energy difference between the s and p sub-shells.

[Armen_Isayan_2L]

Nitrogen disrupts the electron affinity trend because the effective nuclear charge increases, every single p-orbital is occupied by one electron, as the incoming electron is identical to the electron that is already occupied, more energy is needed to add it.

[Alexandra Salata 2L]

This happens because effective nuclear charge, which is a measure of what the net positive charge felt by the electrons is, increases. This implies that the atomic size of carbon will be a little bigger than that of nitrogen, which in turn will be a little bigger than that of oxygen