Talk:Triplet oxygen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Chemistry
Chemistry Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemistry, which collaborates on Chemistry and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

According to Zumdahl's "Chemistry", in degeneration of the the 2p orbitals, orbitals, the two pi-bonding orbitals are below the sigma bonding orbitals (the antibonding orbitals are ok however). (this e.g. is the a mode of explaining the paramagnetic character of Boron)

Anyone willing to change the scheme accordingly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by L.tak (talk • contribs) 21:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the article is probably right as it is now. In Brown, LeMay & Bursten ("Chemistry: The Central Science", 10th edition), on p381 (Fig 9.44) it states "When the 2s and 2p orbitals interact, the σ2s MO falls in energy and the σ2p MO rises in energy. For O2, F2 and Ne2, the interaction is small, and the σ2p remains below the π2p (my emphasis), as in Figure 9.42. For B2, C2 and N2, the 2s-2p interaction is great enough that the σ2p MO rises above the π2p MOs, as shown...". I interpret that to mean that the diagram shown is right, but that you are right in thinking that B2 shows this unusual ordering of MOs. Walkerma (talk) 06:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • in the case of for example boron the relative ordering of orbitals has physical significance but not with oxygen except in spectra V8rik (talk) 18:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)