Am I drawing the lewis dot structure for N3^-1 correctly?

JohnDavid

New member
My image: http://i54.tinypic.com/1zxv4le.jpg

My problem is counting the total # of electrons.

I calculated by getting the quantity of N's available (in this case 3) and multiplying by N's group # (5)

So: 3•5= 15 + 1e-= 16 total e-

But in the image I showed you that I'm getting, I see 18 e-'s, which is 2 more than what I calculated. What am I doing wrong?
Okay, I see how you got 16 e-, but isn't one of the nitrogens bonded to 10 e- and the octet rule is 8 e- max, so how is that so?
Oh, we were both wrong. There are only supposed to be two double bonds present. I.E: N=N=N with 4 electrons on each of the outer N's.
 

ultimeaciax

New member
The reason why you did it wrong b/c you didn't take into account the extra electron that one of the N's gain and Nitrogen can do triple bond when drawing the structure. Just keep in mind the OCTET RULE. Here's my structure:

http://imgur.com/l0ldF
 
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