From pharmaceuticals, nanomaterials, food products to polymers, the use of differential scanning calorimeters (DSC) is far and wide. The differential scanning calorimetry analysis is also used for glass transition determination, fundamental research in academia and even to investigate chemical reactions.

A common industry tool, differential scanning calorimetry is essentially used in thermal analysis of materials. It measures the heat flow between a sample and reference chamber.

Now, the main advantage of differential scanning calorimetry is the speed and ease at which this technique is used to identify the transition in materials. In case you are working with polymers, then the glass transition is crucial to understand the material. However, in the case of pharmaceuticals, metals, and pure organics, you can notice the changes in phase and even identify the degree of the purity in materials. Suppose you are distilling the materials, then you need to possess the knowledge of the heat capacity of the material and also the heat content change (also known as enthalpy). This is used to identify how effectively the process is working. For all the above reasons, differential scanning calorimetry is an extremely familiar thermal analysis technique which gained popularity across the world in laboratories, quality assurance and process control.

There are two types of differential scanning calorimetry — Heat Flow DSC and Heat Flux DSC.

One of the commonly used devices in a laboratory, the heat flow DSC directly measures the heat that leaves and enters the sample.  In this case, the calorimeter uses a feedback loop in order to keep the temperature within the material constant. The sample holder in most cases is mostly made of aluminum pan.

In heat flux DSCs, you can measure the changing temperature or heat flux, between a sample and a reference material. You can also calculate the heat flow from the calibration data. Interestingly, all through the analysis, the temperature of the sample does not change upon melting. However, the reference material continues to increase linearly.

Uses of differential scanning calorimeters in the different industries

  • In case of general chemical analysis, differential scanning calorimetry helps in purity analysis. In case of purity analysis, the less pure compounds show broader melting peaks at lower temperatures and this is where the DSC comes to the rescue and aids in analyzing the temperature.
  • As mentioned above, one of the main uses of the DSC is in the pharmaceutical industry. If you want a drug to be delivered as a liquid, then with the help of DSC you can process the drug contents at temperatures below those of crystallization.

In the Middle East and Gulf region, if you are looking for the best Differential Scanning Calorimeter supplier then you search ends at Dutco Tennant LLC. The wide range of NETZSCH DSC instruments all operate in accordance with the heat flow principle. Thanks to the three-dimensional symmetrical design with homogeneous heating, they require short time constants and a condensation-free sample chamber.