In: Chemistry
Draw the electron-group geometry for HNO3, in which hydrogen is attached to one of the oxygens and all oxygens are attached to nitrogen. To simplify, ignore the hydrogen when you name the molecule's shape. Draw the Lewis dot structure.
Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion theory (VSEPR) . The atoms around the nitrogen are going to spread out as far as they can to minimize repulsion between electrons, as they are all of the same negative charge. We can see that there are three things bonded to the central nitrogen-three oxygen atoms-so that gives us a steric number of 3. (The steric number is the sum of atoms bonded directly to the central atom + the number of lone pairs on the central atom. We have three oxygen atoms bonded to the central atom N and no lone pairs on N, so we have a steric number of 3.
Our steric number is 3 and we have no lone pairs, so we can see that the molecular geometry of nitric acid is trigonal planar.