Question

What are ambident nucleophiles? Explain with an example.

Answer 1

Nucleophiles are the species which have a great affinity towards the positive charge. They generally possess negative charge or have lone pairs of electrons. It can donate electrons easily to an electron deficient species known as electrophile and forms a bond. Nucleophiles always attract positive charge.

Complete answer:
Nucleophiles are the species which have a great affinity towards the positive charge which means it attracts the positive charge. They generally possess negative charge or have lone pairs of electrons. It can donate electrons easily to an electron deficient species known as electrophile and forms a bond.
So, we know that nucleophiles have donor sites through which it can donate its electron pair to the electrophile. If there is one donor atom then it is known as monodentate and if there are two donor atoms then it is known as bidentate.
Now, ambident nucleophiles are those in which there are two donor sites but it can donate electrons from any one of them at a time.
For example: $SC{N^ - }$
Here in nitrogen dioxide we can see that there are two donor sites one is nitrogen and the other one is sulphur.

Note:
We should note get confused between the terms electrophiles and nucleophiles. Electrophiles are the opposites of nucleophiles. They are electron deficient species and have a great affinity towards the electrons. They accept the electrons and form bonds with the nucleophiles (which attract the positive charge towards itself and have excess electrons).