Bond Order Definition and Examples

Bond order is a measurement of the number of electrons involved in bonds between two atoms in a molecule. It is used as an indicator of the stability of a chemical bond. Usually, the higher the bond order, the stronger the chemical bond.
Most of the time, bond order is equal to the number of bonds between two atoms. Exceptions occur when the molecule contains antibonding orbitals.
Bond order is calculated by the equation:
Bond order = (number of bonding electrons - number of antibonding electrons)/2
If bond order = 0, the two atoms are not bonded. While a compound can have a bond order of zero, this value is not possible for elements.

Bond Order Examples

The bond order between the two carbons in acetylene is equal to 3. The bond order between the carbon and hydrogen atoms is equal to 1.

Sources

• Clayden, Jonathan; Greeves, Nick; Warren, Stuart (2012). Organic Chemistry (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927029-3.
• Housecroft, C. E.; Sharpe, A. G. (2012). Inorganic Chemistry (4th ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-273-74275-3.
• Manz, T. A. (2017). "Introducing DDEC6 atomic population analysis: part 3. Comprehensive method to compute bond orders." RSC Adv. 7 (72): 45552–45581. doi:10.1039/c7ra07400j