How does an amino group act as a base?

How does a proton ionize the group? Shouldn't it make nitrogen a new element or does it interact with Nitrogen's 3 2p orbitals?|||Well what happens is that in the presence of a strong acid, the amine group -NH2 becomes protonated and thus becomes -NH3+ (the positive formal charge lies on nitrogen). So in that sense the molecule becomes ionized (if it were say methylamine).





So the amine group is a base as it is able to be protonated...|||by being willing to accept an H+ (Brownsted-lowery) or donate an electron pair (Lewis). The 3 ends of an amino acid have differing pKas. An amino acid acts as a base primarily from its side chain, not the amino group as they are primarily bonded to the carboxylic acid group to form proteins. .





Nitrogen can form 4 bonds and when it does, it has a positive charge. Bonding doesn't change the element - nitrogen is nitrogen.





The basic amino acids (because of the side groups) are HAL - histidine, arganine, and lysine.|||if your moving protons around, then that's nuclear chemistry, totally different. i doubt a proton ionized anything, because thats what electrons usually do.