Question

Given that ammonia is a gas at room temperature, what can you infer about the relative strengths of the intermolecular forces between ammonia molecules and between water molecules

Answer 1

Answer:

The answer to the question is;

The inter-molecular forces of water are stronger than those of hydrogen.

Explanation:

Ammonia is a compressible gas at room temperature with molecules free to move about and so fill up the volume of the container in which it is placed due to the weaker inter-molecular Van der Waals forces such as Keesom, Debye and London dispersion forces holding the particles of ammonia together in a given volume of the compound.

The inter-molecular forces between water molecules is hydrogen binding and dipole moments due to the strongly electronegative oxygen and hydrogen which tends to move the electrons towards the oxygen creating a charge imbalance that causes the hydrogen surrounding the water molecule to aggregate to neutralize the the charge imbalance  forming the bases for the strong hydrogen bonds.

Therefore water is a liquid at room temperature while ammonia is a gas due to the difference in strength of their inter-molecular forces.