Question

How is nitrogen – 14 an anion?

Answer 1

So if the number of protons present inside the nucleus is equal to the number of electrons which surrounds the nucleus then such an atom is electrically neutral. If the number of electrons are more than that of protons then it is an anion. If the number of the protons are more than that of the electrons then it is a cation.

Complete answer:
So if we consider nitrogen 14 anion this means it should have more number of the electrons than that of the protons. The nitrogen 14 is the isotope of the nitrogen. We know that the atomic number of the nitrogen is 7. This means that in this we would have 7 protons and 7 neutrons. As the number of the neutrons does not tend to influence the net charge of the atom but the number of electrons will affect. So for nitrogen 14 it has 7 protons and 7 neutrons inside the nucleus and it has 10 electrons surrounding the nucleus. So let us calculate the net charge by the following formula:
Net charge= number of protons – number of electrons.
So let us substitute the value in the above formula we get,
Net charge = 7 – 10 = - 3
So as we see that the net charge is negative so this nitrogen 14 will be an anion. The symbol to represent the nitrogen 14 anion is
$^{14}{{N}^{3-}}$

Note: In the cation we see that the atom has lost the electrons. Whereas in the anion we have seen that the atom gains some electrons. The cation has a positive charge whereas the anion has the negative charge on it.