Application of Modulated Temperature DSC to Distillate Fuels and Lubricating Greases

In this work the usefulness of Modulated Temperature DSC (MTDSC) for characterizing petroleum products is illustrated with some typical examples of recent applications. Specifically, the reliability of the method is outlined on the basis of the freezing behaviour of distillate fuels and the thermal analytical characterization of lubricating greases. The results of experiments performed on the evaporation residue of distillate fuels, aimed at providing insights into the structure of degradation products, will also be presented. The experiments were carried out using a DSC 2910 module from TA Instruments Inc., upgraded with the MTDSC option. The samples were exposed to a cyclic heating profile which was generated by an underlying heating (or cooling) rate of 2°C min⁻¹ while superimposing a sinusoidally varying time-temperature wave with an amplitude of ±0.5°C and a period of 40 s. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.