For the O ₂ molecule, what is the correct increasing order of energies for the molecular orbitals formed by the overlap of 2 p atomic orbitals?

Step-by-step solution

For molecules with more than 14 electrons (like O ₂ and F ₂ ), the 2 s -2 p mixing is not significant. As a result, the _ 2p_z molecular orbital is lower in energy than the degenerate _ 2p_x and _ 2p_y orbitals. The antibonding molecular orbitals follow the normal sequence where ^ * _ 2p_x and ^ * _ 2p_y are lower in energy than ^ * _ 2p_z . Therefore, the correct increasing order of energy is ( _ 2p_z ) Answer: ( _ 2p_z ) < ( _ 2p_x ) = ( _ 2p_y ) < ( ^ * _ 2p_x ) = ( ^ * _ 2p_y ) < ( ^ * _ 2p_z )