Dissociative electron attachment to the reactive C 2 F 5 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 C 2 F 5 . The afterglow measurements also show that F − is formed in collisions between electrons and C 2 F 5 molecules with rate constants of 3.7 × 10 −9 cm 3 s −1 to 4.7 × 10 −9 cm 3 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%.