Question

How do we find the bond order of ${\mathrm{SO}}_2$ (Sulphur Dioxide)?

Answer 1

Bond order:

• Bond order is defined as the number of covalent bonds in a molecule.
• The formula to find the Bond order is,

$\mathrm{Bond}\mathrm{order}=\frac{\mathrm{Total}\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{bonds}\mathrm{between}\mathrm{two}\mathrm{atoms}}{\mathrm{Total}\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{canonical}\mathrm{form}}$

• ${\mathrm{SO}}_2$ is having one doubt bond and one single bond, that is a total of 3 bonds.

• The total number of canonical structures for ${\mathrm{SO}}_2$ is 2.

• So, substituting these in the formula,

$\mathrm{Bond}\mathrm{order}=\frac{3}{2}=1.5$

Hence, the bond order of ${\mathrm{SO}}_2$ is $1.5$.