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What is the oxidation number of nitrogen in NH4NO3? And why? Thanks :)

I found this question:

"NH4NO3 --> N2O + 2H2O

What happens to the oxidation number of each nitrogen from NH4NO3 in this reaction?"

To get the correct answer you must separate the ions: NH4+ and NO3-. I was wondering why you have to separate the ions rather than finding the oxidation number of the nitrogen from the whole compound. Is it just a rule of thumb that if you have two compound ions in a molecule that you have to separate them to find the oxidation number?

Any help would be much appreciated :smile:
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Avatar for h3rmit
h3rmit
15
Original post by xhxhxh
I found this question:

"NH4NO3 --> N2O + 2H2O

What happens to the oxidation number of each nitrogen from NH4NO3 in this reaction?"

To get the correct answer you must separate the ions: NH4+ and NO3-. I was wondering why you have to separate the ions rather than finding the oxidation number of the nitrogen from the whole compound. Is it just a rule of thumb that if you have two compound ions in a molecule that you have to separate them to find the oxidation number?

Any help would be much appreciated :smile:


Because NH4NO3 is an ionic compound, the separate ions of the compound are different to the whole. If you worked out nitrogen's oxidation number from the whole compound, you'd be assuming the oxidation numbers for each nitrogen were the same.

It's always a good idea to separate the ions before calculating oxidation numbers.

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