How to Calculate Bond Order.

Bond order is defined as half the difference between the number of bonding and anti-bonding electrons.

Stable bonds have a positive bond order.

Formula to calculate bond order.

To calculate the bond order, we start by drawing the Lewis structure.

There are different types of bonds between two atoms;

1. No bond
2. Single bond
3. double bond
4. triple bond

Example 1:

Suppose you are asked to find the bond order of hydrogen gas ( H₂ ).

The Lewis structure for hydrogen gas is as follows.

H : H, this means that only one pair of electrons are shared hence a single bond which also means that hydrogen gas has a bond order of 1.

Example 2:

For poly atomic molecules like a nitrate, it is calculated a little bit differently.

We still begin by drawing the Lewis structure of Nitrate.

The total number of bonds in this structure is 4, ( N-0, N-O, N-O, N-O).

While the number of bonding groups is 3, ( N=O, N-O, N-O ).

Therefore, to calculate bond order, we divide the total number of bonds by number of bonds between individual atoms.

= 4 ÷ 3

= 1.33

Therefore nitrate has a bond order of 1.33.