Question

How Antibonding Orbital is Formed?

Answer 1

Formation of Antibonding Orbitals

• When the atomic orbitals get subtracted, it will form antibonding molecular orbitals(σ*).The atomic orbitals formed by the addition of orbitals are known as bonding molecular orbitals(σ). In the antibonding molecular orbitals less number of electron are present in the internuclear region.
• For the formation of Anti-bonding orbitals the atomic orbitals will combine but by the subtraction of wave function i.e. Φ=Ψ_A-Ψ_B. These atomic orbitals shows a subtractive wave effect.
• The bonding orbitals has lower energy than that of anti-bonding orbitals. The anti-bonding orbitals have repulsive forces and lower stability due to higher energy as compared to bonding orbitals.

Thus, anti-bonding molecular orbitals are formed by out-of-phase overlap with destructive interference.

.