Question

What is the coordination number of sodium ion (Na+) in the sodium chloride crystal structure and how many nearest neighbors does a sodium ion have?

Answer 1

In the sodium chloride  NaCl  crystal structure, each sodium ion  Na+  is surrounded by six chloride ions  Cl-  in an octahedral arrangement. Therefore, the coordination number of the sodium ion  Na+  in the sodium chloride crystal structure is 6. This also means that a sodium ion has 6 nearest neighbors.