Molecular orbital description

In this expression, Kab (always positive) is the exchange integral, Jaa and Jab the one and two-center Coulomb integrals, respectively. 

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Section 2 22 Lewis structures orbital hybridization and molecular orbital descriptions of bonding are all used m organic chemistry Lewis structures are used the most MO descriptions the least All will be used m this text... 

Cyclic conjugation although necessary for aromaticity is not sufficient for it Some other factor or factors must contribute to the special stability of benzene and compounds based on the benzene ring To understand these factors let s return to the molecular orbital description of benzene... 

A molecular orbital description of benzene has three tt orbitals that are bonding and three that are antibonding Each of the bonding orbitals is fully occupied (two electrons each) and the antibonding orbitals are vacant... 

Fig. 4.2 Molecular orbital description of the bonding in acyclic S2N2 and (SN)x...

The molecular orbital description of the bonding in NO is similar to that in N2 or CO (p. 927) but with an extra electron in one of the tt antibonding orbitals. This effectively reduces the bond order from 3 to 2.5 and accounts for the fact that the interatomic N 0 distance (115 pm) is intermediate between that in the triple-bonded NO+ (106 pm) and values typical of double-bonded NO species ( 120 pm). It also interprets the very low ionization energy of the molecule (9.25 eV, compared with 15.6 eV for N2, 14.0 eV for CO, and 12.1 eV for O2). Similarly, the notable reluctance of NO to dimerize can be related both to the geometrical distribution of the unpaired electron over the entire molecule and to the fact that dimerization to 0=N—N=0 leaves the total bond order unchanged (2 x 2.5 = 5). When NO condenses to a liquid, partial dimerization occurs, the cis-form being more stable than the trans-. The pure liquid is colourless, not blue as sometimes stated blue samples owe their colour to traces of the intensely coloured N2O3.6O ) Crystalline nitric oxide is also colourless (not blue) when pure, ° and X-ray diffraction data are best interpreted in terms of weak association into... 

Figure 1.18 A molecular orbital description of the C=C tt bond in ethylene. The lower-energy, tt bonding MO results from a combination of p orbital lobes with the same algebraic sign and is filled. The higher-energy, -tt antibonding MO results from a combination of p orbital lobes with the opposite algebraic signs and is unfilled.

The stability order of alkenes is due to a combination of two factors. One is a stabilizing interaction between the C=C tr bond and adjacent C-H a bonds on substituents. In valence-bond language, the interaction is called hyperconjugation. In a molecular orbital description, there is a bonding MO that extends over the four-atom C=C—< -H grouping, as shown in Figure 6.6. The more substituents that are present on the double bond, the more hyperconjugation there is and the more stable the alkene. 

Having just seen a resonance description of benzene, let s now look at the alternative molecular orbital description. We can construct -tt molecular orbitals for benzene just as we did for 1,3-butadiene in Section 14.1. If six p atomic orbitals combine in a cyclic manner, six benzene molecular orbitals result, as shown in Figure 15.3. The three low-energy molecular orbitals, denoted bonding combinations, and the three high-energy orbitals are antibonding. 

Conjugated enones are more stable than nonconjugated enones for the same reason that conjugated dienes are more stable than nonconjugated dienes (Section 14.1). Interaction between the tt electrons of the C=C bond and the tt electrons of the C=0 group leads to a molecular orbital description for a conjugated enone that shows an interaction of the tt electrons over all four atomic centers (Figure 23.3). 

In the molecular orbital description of homonuclear diatomic molecules, we first build all possible molecular orbitals from the available valence-shell atomic orbitals. Then we accommodate the valence electrons in molecular orbitals by using the same procedure we used in the building-up principle for atoms (Section 1.13). That is,... 

At first sight, the molecular orbital description of N2 looks quite different from the Lewis description ( N=N ). However, it is, in fact, very closely related. We can see their similarity by defining the bond order (b) in molecular orbital theory as the net number of bonds, allowing for the cancellation of bonds by antibonds ... 

Another important polyatomic molecule is benzene, C6f I6, the parent of the aromatic compounds. In the molecular orbital description of benzene, all thirty C2s-, C2p-, and Hls-orbitals contribute to molecular orbitals spreading over all twelve atoms (six C plus six H). The orbitals in the plane of the ring (the C2s-, C2px, and ( 2/ -orbitals on each carbon atom and all six Hls-orbitals) form delocalized o-orbitals that bind the C atoms together and link the H atoms to the C atoms. The six C2pz-orbitals, which are perpendicular to the ring, contribute to six delocalized tt-orbitals that spread all the way around the ring. However, chemists... 

The n molecular orbitals described so far involve two atoms, so the orbital pictures look the same for the localized bonding model applied to ethylene and the MO approach applied to molecular oxygen. In the organic molecules described in the introduction to this chapter, however, orbitals spread over three or more atoms. Such delocalized n orbitals can form when more than two p orbitals overlap in the appropriate geometry. In this section, we develop a molecular orbital description for three-atom n systems. In the following sections, we apply the results to larger molecules. 

Molecular Orbital Description of Arylaminyl Radicals. Aryl-aminyl radicals, as previously discussed, are intermediates in both the photolysis of alkyl N-arylcarbamates (7, 8) and the photolysis of arylamines (18). A simplified mechanism for photolysis of arylamines and alkyl N-arylcarbamates is illustrated in Scheme IV for the general case. An indication of the reactivity of the... 

The Stability of the Allyl Radical 13.3A Molecular Orbital Description of the Allyl Radical... 

The basic principles dealing with the molecular orbital description of the bonding in diatomic molecules have been presented in the previous section. However, somewhat different considerations are involved when second-row elements are involved in the bonding because of the differences between s and p orbitals. When the orbitals being combined are p orbitals, the lobes can combine in such a way that the overlap is symmetric around the intemuclear axis. Overlap in this way gives rise to a a bond. This type of overlap involves p orbitals for which the overlap is essentially "end on" as shown in Figure 3.5. For reasons that will become clear later, it will be assumed that the pz orbital is the one used in this type of combination. 

The bonding in the XeF2 molecule can be explained quite simply in terms of a 3-center, 4 electron bond that spans all three atoms in the molecule. The bonding in this molecular orbital description involves the filled 5pz orbital of Xe and the half-filled 2pz orbitals of the two F-atoms. The linear combination of these three atomic orbitals affords one bonding, one non-bonding and one anti-bonding orbital, as depicted below ... 

R.C. Baetzold, Molecular orbital description of catalysis by metal clusters, J. Catal. 29... 

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