MO Theory
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Luke_Lucido_3B
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MO Theory
Why do bonding molecular orbitals have lower energy than anti bonding molecular orbitals? seems like it should be the opposite to me
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Pauline Tze 3B
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Re: MO Theory
Luke_Lucido_3B wrote:Why do bonding molecular orbitals have lower energy than anti bonding molecular orbitals? seems like it should be the opposite to me
Bonding and anti-bonding molecular orbitals are necessary to ensure the conservation of energy of orbitals. Bonding orbitals act to make the atomic orbitals overlap into a molecule while anti bonding orbitals act to force the atomic orbitals apart.
Anti-bonding molecular orbitals are higher in energy because they represent the instability of the molecule; in other words, to be stable, molecular orbitals need to achieve the lowest possible energy state (and therefore bonding orbitals are lower in energy).
I hope that helps!
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