Answer to Question #53400 in Inorganic Chemistry for manisha

Question

what is the meaning of inert gas.How nitrogen is an inert gas?

Answer 1

An inert gas is a compound which doesn’t react under a set of given conditions. There is a group of gases being represented by so-called ‘nobel gases’ or ‘inert gases’ (He, Ar, Kr, Xe, Ne), which have very low reactivity. For example, Xe can only form substances with fluorine and oxygen. From this point of view, since nitrogen has very low reactivity at ambient temperature it is considered inert gas. Although nitrogen undergoes chemical reactions with oxygen and hydrogen, but this only occurs upon special conditions (high temperature, pressure or catalyst). This feature is conditioned by the formation of strong triple bond between two nitrogen atoms (NΞN) as a result of interaction of 2p-orbitals from both atoms (N: 1s22s22p3). Thus, nitrogen (N2) can only react if its triple bond is broken under high temperature either using of catalyst:
N2 + O2 → 2NO (heating)
N2 + 3H2 → 2NH3 (heating, catalyst, pressure)