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CHEM 125A - Freshman Organic Chemistry I

Lecture 15 - Chemical Reactivity: SOMO, HOMO, and LUMO. Professor McBride begins by using previous examples of "pathological" bonding and the BH₃ molecule to illustrate how a chemist's use of localized bonds, vacant atomic orbitals, and unshared pairs to understand molecules compares with views based on the molecule's own total electron density or on computational molecular orbitals. This lecture then focuses on understanding reactivity in terms of the overlap of singly-occupied molecular orbitals (SOMOs) and, more commonly, of an unusually high-energy highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) with an unusually low-energy lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). This is shown to be a generalization of the traditional concepts of acid and base. Criteria for assessing reactivity are outlined and illustrated. (from oyc.yale.edu)

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