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Which is predicted to have the shorter sulfur–oxygen bonds: a sulfite ion or a sulfate ion?
The sulfate ion should have shorter sulfur-oxygen bonds than a sulfite ion.
The sulfite ion is a hybrid of three equivalent contributing structures.
The bond orders of the ##"S-O"## bonds in any one contributor are 2, 1, and 1.
The bond orders of the ##"S-O"## bonds in the hybrid are an average of these numbers.
##BO = ##2 + 1 +1)/3 = 4/3 = 1.33
The sulfate ion is a resonance hybrid of six equivalent contributing structures.
The bond orders of the ##"S-O"## bonds in any one contributor are 2, 2, 1, and 1.
The bond orders of the ##"S-O"## bonds in the hybrid are an average of these numbers.
##BO = (2 + 2 + 1 +1)/4 = 6/4 = 1.50##
The greater the bond order, the shorter the bond length.
The ##"S-O"## bond order is greater in the sulfate ion, so sulfate ions should have shorter ##"S-O"## bonds.
Experiments confirm this prediction.
The measured ##"S-O"## bond lengths are 149 pm in sulfate ion and 151 pm in sulfite ion.
