Dissociative electron attachment to H2O2: a very effective source for OH and OH− generation

Dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is studied by two independent electron beam experiments using mass spectrometric detection of the product ions. The fragments OH− and O− are observed from a prominent low energy resonance peaking near 0.4 eV. The partial absolute DEA cross-sections are 6.8×10−17 and 1.7×10−17 cm2 for the OH− and the O− channels, respectively. These numbers are several orders of magnitude higher than for the corresponding DEA processes in simple OH containing organic compounds. These numbers are also important from the point of view of radiation damage in biological tissues.