How to calculate bond order of a molecule?
Bond order: Bond order =1/2(number of electron in bonding molecular orbital-number of electron in antibonding molecular orbital) It is defined as the number of covalent bond in a molecule. To calculate bond order first you need to know about the number of electron in bonding and antibonding molecular orbital. Bonding molecular orbital are represented as sigma and antibonding molecular orbital are represented as sigma*. To know this,let's go to the molecular energy level diagram and calculate the difference between nb(electron in bonding molecular orbital) and na(electron in antibonding molecular orbital). Example:Bond order of Boron( B2 ) is 1. it has 4 electron in bonding molecular orbital and 2 electron in antibonding molecular orbital.so Bond order:1/2(nb-na) = 1/2(4-2) ...