A re-examination of the heat of fusion of indium

The currently accepted value of the heat of fusion, ΔH, of indium is shown to be of doubtful accuracy so that indium is an unsuitable calibrant in differential scanning calorimetry. ΔH has been redetermined using a DSC calibrated with alumina, a technique which is shown to reproduce enthalpy changes in a variety of materials with an accuracy of ±1%. The heat of fusion of indium is 3.35 kJ g-at^?1 (29.2 J g^?1).