Electron scattering measurements from molecules of technological relevance

Biomass represents a significant opportunity to provide renewable and sustainable biofuels [1]. Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasmas provide an opportunity to efficiently breakdown the naturally-resilient biomass into its useful subunits [2]. Free electrons produced in the plasma may assist in this process by inducing fragmentation though dissociative excitation, ionization or attachment processes [3]. To assist in understanding and refining this process, we have performed electron energy loss experiments from phenol (C$_{6}$H$_{5}$OH), a key structural building block of biomass. This enables a quantitative assessment of the excited electronic states of phenol. Differential cross sections for the electron-driven excitation of phenol have also been obtained for incident electron energies in the 20-250eV range and over 3-90$^{\circ}$ scattering angles. \\[4pt] [1] A. J. Ragauskas \textit{et al}, Science \textbf{311}, 484 (2006).\\[0pt] [2] M. Benoit \textit{et al}, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. \textbf{50}, 8964 (2011).\\[0pt] [3] E.M. de Oliveira \textit{et al}, Phys. Rev. A. \textbf{86}, 020701(R) (2012).