A comprehensive study of the symmetry forbidden fragmentation of short-lived radical anions (RAs) has been undertaken for the complete set of polyfluorinated benzoates (C6F n H5-n CO2-, n= 1-5). The decay rate constants (kc) of RAs have been determined in aqueous alkaline solution (pH 13.4) by electron photoinjection (EPI) from mercury electrodes and were found to increase dramatically from≤ 3× 103 s-1 (3-F-C6H4CO2-) to (1.2±0.8)× 109 ...