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Triplet oxygen, 3 O 2, refers to the S = 1 electronic ground state of molecular oxygen (dioxygen). Molecules of triplet oxygen contain two unpaired electrons, making triplet oxygen an unusual example of a stable and commonly encountered diradical : [ 2 ] it is more stable as a triplet than a singlet .
Molecular oxygen (dioxygen) is a diradical containing two unpaired electrons, and superoxide results from the addition of an electron which fills one of the two degenerate molecular orbitals, leaving a charged ionic species with a single unpaired electron and a net negative charge of −1.
The unpaired electrons participate in three-electron bonding, shown here using dashed lines. The common allotrope of elemental oxygen on Earth, O 2, is generally known as oxygen, but may be called dioxygen, diatomic oxygen, molecular oxygen, dioxidene or oxygen gas to distinguish it from the element itself and from the triatomic allotrope ozone ...
An unpaired electron has a magnetic dipole moment, while an electron pair has no dipole moment because the two electrons have opposite spins so their magnetic dipole fields are in opposite directions and cancel. Thus an atom with unpaired electrons acts as a magnetic dipole and interacts with a magnetic field. Only elements with unpaired ...
The molecule, therefore, has two unpaired electrons and is in a triplet state. In contrast, the first and second excited states of dioxygen are both states of singlet oxygen . Each has two electrons of opposite spin in the π* level so that S = 0 and the multiplicity is 2S + 1 = 1 in consequence.
A notable example of a radical is the hydroxyl radical (HO·), a molecule that has one unpaired electron on the oxygen atom. Two other examples are triplet oxygen and triplet carbene (꞉ CH 2) which have two unpaired electrons.
An electron configuration with two unpaired electrons, as is found in dioxygen orbitals (see the filled π* orbitals in the diagram) that are of equal energy—i.e., degenerate—is a configuration termed a spin triplet state. Hence, the ground state of the O 2 molecule is referred to as triplet oxygen.
Distributing 8 electrons over 6 molecular orbitals leaves the final two electrons as a degenerate pair in the 2pπ* antibonding orbitals resulting in a bond order of 2. As in diboron, these two unpaired electrons have the same spin in the ground state, which is a paramagnetic diradical triplet oxygen.