Q.Why ammonia has high boiling point? OR Why sulphur founds solid state in nature?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Ammonia's high boiling point is due to intermolecular hydrogen bonding between N-H and the lone pair of a neighbouring N atom — this is the same effect that gives primary/secondary amines higher boiling points than tertiary amines of similar mass. [OR: Sulphur is solid because it forms puckered, covalently-bonded S8 ring molecules with fairly strong van der Waals attractions between rings.]
Why does ammonia have a high boiling point?
Hydrogen bonding occurs when a hydrogen atom is covalently bonded to a small, highly electronegative atom (N, O or F) that also has a lone pair. In NH3, each N-H bond is polar, and the lone pair on nitrogen of one molecule can attract the partially positive H of a neighbouring NH3 molecule, forming an N-H...N hydrogen bond. This intermolecular force is much stronger than the ordinary dispersion forces present in molecules of similar size, so significantly more energy is needed to separate NH3 molecules into the gas phase — raising its boiling point (-33 degC) far above what its molar mass alone would predict, and well above PH3 (-87 degC), which cannot hydrogen-bond because phosphorus is larger and less electronegative.
This is exactly the concept used in the Amines chapter to explain why primary and secondary amines (which have N-H bonds and can hydrogen-bond, like NH3) have noticeably higher boiling points than tertiary amines of comparable molecular mass (which have no N-H bond and so cannot hydrogen-bond with each other).
OR: Why is sulphur solid at room temperature? …
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