Dissociative electron attachment to C2F5 radicals

Dissociative electron attachment to the reactive C2F5 molecular radical has been investigated with two complimentary experimental methods; a single collision beam experiment and a new flowing afterglow Langmuir probe technique. The beam results show that F- is formed close to zero electron energy in dissociative electron attachment to C2F5. The afterglow measurements also show that F- is formed in collisions between electrons and C2F5 molecules with rate constants of 3.7 × 10-9 cm3 s-1 to 4.7 × 10-9 cm3 s-1 at temperatures of 300–600 K. The rate constant increases slowly with increasing temperature, but the rise observed is smaller than the experimental uncertainty of 35%.