PCl5 exists but NCl5 does not because :
Correct answer: A. nitrogen has no vacant 2 d-orbitals
- A. nitrogen has no vacant 2 d-orbitals
- B. NCl5 is unstable
- C. nitrogen atom is much smaller than P
- D. nitrogen is highly inert
Explanation
Excitation of 2s electron in N is not possible. PCl5 forms five bonds by using the d-orbitals to "expand the octet" and have more "places" to put bonding pairs of electrons. NCl5 does not exist because there are no d-orbitals in the second energy level. Therefore there is no way to arrange five pairs of bonding electrons around a nitrogen atom.
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