A new experimental set up is developed to study the fusion edge plasma facing materials under impact of low-energy (40–10,000eV) atomic and molecular ions. The primary ions are obtained from a low-pressure D.C. gas discharge Colutron ion source. The product ions resulting from the ion–surface interactions involving different processes, for example, surface-induced dissociation (SID), surface-induced reaction (SIR), chemical- and sputtering are detected and identified by using a single-field linear time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometer coupled with a time- and position-sensitive dual micro-channel plate detector. The mass spectra of secondary ions are recorded by employing a pulsed extraction and acceleration technique. The experimental set up, experimental technique and data acquisition methodology are presented and discussed. A test experiment is conducted on the developed set up to demonstrate the performance and reliability of the apparatus. For this, a primary beam of 427eV N2+ ions was chosen to interact with a hydrocarbons covered surface of platinum target kept at room temperature. SID of N2+ into N+ and TOF mass spectra of sputtered, reflected and chemically formed ions from the ion–surface interaction are analyzed. A noticeable feature in the spectra is observed which shows that the odd-electron ions of sputtered hydrocarbons are preferentially produced in the interaction in addition to the other product ions. The nominal mass resolution (M/ΔM) of the present tandem mass spectrometer system is estimated to be about 600, while energy and spatial spreads of the primary ion beam are determined to be about 518meV and 2.8±0.3mm respectively. The survival probability of the incident ions is found to be 6.6% suggesting that the major process of ion–surface interaction at the considered impact energy is neutralization.