Which consequence results from thermal excitation promoting electrons to higher antibonding molecular orbitals?

💡 Explanation

When electrons are thermally excited to antibonding orbitals, bond order decreases because antibonding orbitals weaken the attractive force by cancelling out bonding orbital contributions leading to decreased stability. Therefore lower bond order results, rather than increased conductivity etc which depend on mobile charge carriers or surface properties.

• Which failure mode results when electrons exceed MOSFET gate oxide voltage?
• Which mechanism causes a packed bed reactor with a deactivated catalyst to exhibit increased pressure drop?
• Which risk increases when lithium salts are repeatedly thermally cycled?
• Which mechanism causes decreased capacitance when plates separate in a parallel-plate capacitor?
• Which outcome occurs when hydrogen atoms form H₂ molecules?
• Which outcome occurs when a catalyst destabilizes reactant transition states?