You can think of the bonding in the Cl2 molecule in several ways. For example, you can

Chapter 9, Problem 9.106

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You can think of the bonding in the Cl2 molecule in several ways. For example, you can picture the Cl-Cl bond containing two electrons that each come from the 3p orbitals of a Cl atom that are pointing in the appropriate direction. However, you can also think about hybrid orbitals. (a) Draw the Lewis structure of the Cl2 molecule. (b) What is the hybridization of each Cl atom? (c) What kind of orbital overlap, in this view, makes the Cl-Cl bond? (d) Imagine if you could measure the positions of the lone pairs of electrons in Cl2. How would you distinguish between the atomic orbital and hybrid orbital models of bonding using that knowledge? (e) You can also treat Cl2 using molecular orbital theory to obtain an energy level diagram similar to that for F2. Design an experiment that could tell you if the MO picture of Cl2 is the best one, assuming you could easily measure bond lengths, bond energies, and the light absorption properties for any ioruzed species.