Question

Calculate the bond order of ${{\mathrm{He}}_2}^{+}$

Answer 1

Calculation of bond order

Step 1: Calculating the total number of electrons in ${{\mathrm{He}}_2}^{+}$
Number of electrons in Helium(2) = 2
Number of electrons in ${{\mathrm{He}}_2}^{+}$= 3

Step 2: Determining the electronic configuration of ${{\mathrm{He}}_2}^{+}$
${\left[\mathrm{\sigma }\right(1\mathrm{s}\left)\right]}^2{\left[{\mathrm{\sigma }}^{\ast }\right(1\mathrm{s}\left)\right]}^1$

The number of bonding electrons = 2

The number of anti-bonding electrons = 1

Step 3: Calculating the bond order
Bond order = $\frac{\mathrm{Number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{electrons}\mathrm{in}\mathrm{bonding}-\mathrm{Number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{electrons}\mathrm{in}\mathrm{antibonding}}{2}$
Bond order = $\frac{2-1}{2}$
Bond order = $\frac{1}{2}$

Bond order = 0.5.

Hence, the bond order for ${{\mathrm{He}}_2}^{+}$ is 0.5.