Three Bond Theories

Each of these bond theories will be covered in more detail in the subsequent sections of this site.

VSEPR

Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion Theory (VSEPR) is a qualitative theory that allows us to predict the geometry of molecules based upon their Lewis structures. This model looks at the repulsion of different electron regions (either bonding or non-bonding) and chooses a geometry that minimizes their repulsions.

Valence Bond Theory

The valence bond model is a quantum mechanical model for understanding bonding in molecules. However, now it is mostly used by chemists as a means to describe the bonding with organic systems qualitatively. The idea is that bonds form between atoms as a result of the overlap of atomic orbitals. This leads to what we would call a localized bonding picture. You can point to a bond in a molecule and say what types of atomic orbitals lead to that particular bond. The only complication is that the atomic orbitals we know and love cannot lead to the geometries that we know molecules have. Thus, we have to invent new "hybrid" orbitals by making combinations of the atomic orbitals we started with (s,p,d,f orbitals).

Molecular Orbital Theory

Molecular Orbital theory (MO) is the most important quantum mechanical theory for describing bonding in molecules. It is an approximate theory (as any theory that utilizes "orbitals"), but it is a very good approximation of the bonding.

The MO perspective on electrons in molecules is very different from that of a localized bonding picture such as valence bond (VB) theory. In VB we describe particular bonds as coming from the overlap of orbitals on atomic centers. In MO this idea is not completely gone, but now rather than just looking at individual bonds, MO describes the whole molecule as one big system. The orbitals from MO theory are spread out over the entire molecule rather than being associated with a bond between only two atoms. Each MO can have a particular shape such that some orbitals have greater electron density in one place or another, but in the end the orbitals now "belong" to the molecule rather than any particular bond.

For diatomic molecules (which we look at a lot), the VB picture and the MO picture are very similar. This is because the whole molecule is simply two atoms bonded together. The difference become more apparent when we look at MO in larger molecules.