MTDSC at the Glass Transition Quantitative use of the phase lag correction The effects of long annealing times

A study of the effects of changing sample mass and purge gas on the phase lag and calculation of the out of phase (kinetic) component for polystyrene in MTDSC was undertaken. The results confirm those from an earlier study that suggested the kinetic signal is unchanged by altering these parameters thus it is probably a correct quantitative measure of this signal. The effects of long annealing times were also studied and it was shown that all the signals of MTDSC are affected in contrast to a previous study showing that for moderate annealing the reversing and kinetic signals are substantially invariant. Nevertheless the non-reversing signal remains useful for characterising relative enthalpy losses. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.