Die ermittlung des schmelzpunktes von kristallinen polymeren mittels wärmeflusskalorimetrie (DSC)

Small and imperfect crystals in polymers reorganize during slow heating. This leads to an increase of their melting point T_m. In order to measure the melting point of the original crystals, high heating rates are needed. This is possible with the modern heat-flow-calorimeters, which work with very small samples. The thermal lag of a DSC cell causes a shift of the melting peak by ΔT to higher temperature. From the theory of a heat-flow-calorimeter, it follows that the error ΔT is proportional to the square root of heating rate. heat of fusion and sample mass. Measurements with sharp melting low molecular weight compounds confirm that this square root relation is quantitatively followed. In order to measure the true melting point of the crystals present in a polymer sample, one has to use different high heating rates and constant sample mass. By plotting the melting peak temperatures as a function of the square root of heating rate and linear extrapolation to zero heating rate, the true melting point is found. This method is applied to HDPE, LDPE and some polyamides.