The bond order of a molecule is determined by the number of bonding electrons minus the number of antibonding electrons, divided by 2. For carbon monoxide CO , we can determine the bond order using molecular orbital theory.Carbon has 6 electrons and oxygen has 8 electrons, giving a total of 14 electrons in the CO molecule. The molecular orbital configuration for CO is:1 2 1 3 1Here, the bonding orbitals are 1, 2, 1, and 3, and the antibonding orbital is 1*. The number of electrons in bonding orbitals is 10 2 in each of the four bonding orbitals , and the number of electrons in antibonding orbitals is 2 in the 1* orbital .Now, we can calculate the bond order:Bond order = Number of electrons in bonding orbitals - Number of electrons in antibonding orbitals / 2Bond order = 10 - 2 / 2Bond order = 8 / 2Bond order = 4Therefore, the bond order of carbon monoxide CO is 3.