How to Fill Out a Molecular Orbital Energy Level Diagram

[Junghyuk_Park_1I]

I know that this might be hard to put into words, but what are the general rules on filling out a Molecular Orbital Energy Level Diagram (i.e. how to fill in electrons into bonding/antibonding orbitals, how to determine which is bonding/antibonding, etc.)?

[Lexi Nadler 1H]

This link lists all the steps: http://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physica ... r_Orbitals

Hope it helps!

[Marco_Romo_1M]

You fill in the molecular orbitals from lowest energy to highest energy. Since s orbitals have lower energy than p orbitals, they are filled first. Also, anti-bonding orbitals (denoted with a *) have higher energies than bonding orbitals so they are above bonding orbitals. For atoms who's atomic number is equal to or greater than 8, you go from sigma s to sigma*s to sigma pz to pi px/py to pi*px/py to sigma *pz (giving each two electrons to fill their orbitals). For atoms who's atomic number is less than 8, you do the same order except you switch the order of the sigma pz and pi px/py. Hope this helps...