A technique developed for the continuous and selective detection of water vapour formed during thermal decomposition reactions is described.The device can be connected to different types of thermoanalytical instruments without any difficulties. The detector can closely follow changes in the amount of water released during decomposition reactions, with negligible time delay.The signal curves obtained by the detector can be compared to the simultaneously recorded thermoanalytical curves and used to determine the step in which the water was released.The device as a free standing unit can be used to detect water plugs in different gas flows as well.The different techniques of evolved gas detection (EGD) and evolved gas analysis (EGA) are widely used in thermal analysis to detect the volatile products, if any, and to determine the nature and amount of the volatile products formed during the heating process.Different types of thermoanalytical equipment (thermobalance, DTA apparatus, dilatometric equipment) are connected to gas chromatographs Compared to the simple thermoanalytical methods, these complex methods give additional and detailed information on the decOmposition processes.During thermal decomposition processes it is often necessary to know exactly whether or not water vapour has been formed in the reactions, to detect it selectively in the evolved gases, and continuously to record the change in the amount of water released and to measure its approximate amount.In practice a number of techniques are used to determine the water contents of different flowing gases. However, the number of techniques available for determination of the time-dependent water contents of flowing gases is much lower. For example, there are different well-known methods to measure the water contents in flowing gases, based on conductivity [6], coulombmetry [7], piesoelectricity [8] and dew-point determination [9].The above methods are not suitable for thermoanalytical purposes for various reasons: their characteristic curves are non-linear, the instruments are sensitive ot corrosive gases, or the response time is too high.