Evolved Gas Analysis (EGA) in Thermogravimetry (TG) by mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful technology for analysis of thermal degradation products from organic materials such as polymers, bio mass, paper or tobacco. TG-MS with electron ionization (EI) gives predominately information on the evolved small molecules such as CO, CO₂, or H₂O. Complex organic molecules, however, often are not detectable due to the fragmentation associated with EI. Mass spectrometry using single photon ionization (SPI-MS) now allows the analysis of the evolved pattern of intact organic molecules in conjunction with thermal analysis (TA) data. In this work the coupling of thermal analysis (TG and differential calorimetry, DSC) with SPI-TOFMS is described^[1]. The SPI approach used for the TG-SPI-MS coupling is based on the innovative incoherent EBEL VUV-light source (Electron Beam pumped rare gas Excimer Light source). The VUV-light emitted by the EBEL is focused into the ion source of an ultra-compact orthogonal-acceleration-TOFMS (oaTOFMS). The new EBEL-SPI-oaTOFMS instrument achieves detection limits for organics in the low ppb region. In addition to the technology, applications on different materials are presented. This includes polymers, tobacco, cigarette filter material as well as cigarette paper. Further applications in the field of tobacco science are motivated and discussed

[1]  R. Geiβler, M. R. Saraji-Bozorgzad, T. Gröger, A. Fendt, T. Streibel, M. Sklorz, B. M. Krooβ, K. Fuhrer, M. Gonin, E. Kaisersberger, T. Denner, R. Zimmermann, Anal. Chem. 81 (2009) 6038-6048