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The highest occupied orbital energy level of dioxygen is a pair of antibonding π* orbitals. In the ground state of dioxygen, this energy level is occupied by two electrons of the same spin, as shown in the molecular orbital diagram. The molecule, therefore, has two unpaired electrons and is in a triplet state.
Molecular orbital diagrams are diagrams of molecular orbital (MO) energy levels, shown as short horizontal lines in the center, flanked by constituent atomic orbital (AO) energy levels for comparison, with the energy levels increasing from the bottom to the top. Lines, often dashed diagonal lines, connect MO levels with their constituent AO levels.
Under a molecular orbital theory framework, the oxygen-oxygen bond in triplet dioxygen is better described as one full σ bond plus two π half-bonds, each half-bond accounted for by two-center three-electron (2c-3e) bonding, to give a net bond order of two (1+2× 1 / 2 ), while also accounting for the spin state (S = 1).
The most familiar is molecular oxygen (O 2), present at significant levels in Earth's atmosphere and also known as dioxygen or triplet oxygen. Another is the highly reactive ozone (O 3). Others are: Atomic oxygen (O 1), a free radical. Singlet oxygen (O * 2), one of two metastable states of molecular oxygen. Tetraoxygen (O 4), another ...
Under most common laboratory conditions, the higher energy 1 Σ + g singlet state rapidly converts to the more stable, lower energy 1 Δ g singlet state. [2] This more stable of the two excited states has its two valence electrons spin-paired in one π* orbital while the second π* orbital is empty.
As dioxygen, two oxygen atoms are chemically bound to each other. The bond can be variously described based on level of theory, but is reasonably and simply described as a covalent double bond that results from the filling of molecular orbitals formed from the atomic orbitals of the individual oxygen atoms, the filling of which results in a ...
Although most stable molecules have closed electron shells, a few have unpaired electrons for which Hund's rule is applicable. The most important example is the dioxygen molecule, O 2, which has two degenerate pi antibonding molecular orbitals (π*) occupied by only two electrons.
Date/Time Thumbnail Dimensions User Comment; current: 22:16, 7 January 2015: 430 × 648 (58 KB): Rjlanc: defining z as bond direction with x and y for pi orbitals