We describe a low-energy electron impact experiment, performed on thin n-hexane films held at 80 K, that was designed for the measurement of the effective dissociation cross section in the energy range 0.5-31 eV. The onset of dissociation was found at =~3,6 eV incident electron energy, implicating the excitation of a low-lying triplet state. High dissociation rates at electron energies close to the ionization threshold were correlated to dissociative excited singlet and superexcited states.