Which of the following is true about ozone?

#A)# The molecule exists with localized bonds, namely one double bond and one single bond.
#B)# The formal charge on the outermost oxygen atoms are #0# and #-1#, respectively.
#C)# The molecule oscillates rapidly between two localized resonance structures.
#D)# Both #"O"-"O"# bonds are equivalent, #1.5#-bonds.

1 Answer
Jul 9, 2017

If I chose only one answer, I would choose #D#, but I would actually say that a combination of #C# and #D# would be the most correct.


Basically, the actual structure of #"O"_3# is a combination of the two resonance structures that describe it, having two equivalent #"O"stackrel("- - -")(bar(" "))"O"# bonds.

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/

The most correct answer here thus treats both bonds as equivalent, since both resonance structures exist at the same time, but the electrons in the #pi# bond can be said to resonate (or be delocalized) between the two #"O"-"O"# bonds.

The electrons in the structure are actually spread throughout the structure, so that both bonds are the same length: the length in between that of a double and a single bond, or a bond order of #1.5#.

To be specific, accepting #C# as an answer would imply #D# as the conclusion, so if #C# were lumped into #D#, then the result would be the most correct answer.

But if I chose only one answer, it would be #D#.