Question

Determine the bond order from the molecular electron configurations.

(015)² (015*)² (02)² (025 *)² (2p)4
bond order:
(013)²(015*)² (02)² (025*)² (0₂)² (₂p)¹ (12p *)4
bond order:

Answer 1

bond order of 2 and
bond order of 1

Step-by-step explanation:

Remember that an orbital with a star represents an antibonding orbital, and one without a star represents a bonding one
In the first example, we see that there are a total of 2 orbitals with stars, for a total of 4 "antibonding" electrons. (each of antibonding orbitals have two electrons)
There are a total of 8 "bonding" electrons
Because antibonding and bonding cancel out, we can write:
8 bonding - 4 antibonding = 4 bonding electrons
because each electron pair is one bond, if we have 4 bonding electrons, we have 2 bonding electron pairs, and thus a bond order of 2.

for the second example, it is the same:

There are 10 bonding electrons and 8 antibonding electrons
10-8 = 2 bonding electrons = 1 bonding electron pair = bond order 1