Thermal methods of analysis/differential scanning calorimetry in theory and application

Abstract

Two types of methods are commonly used in Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), heat-flow DSC, formerly known as Quantitative Differential Thermal Analysis (QDTA) and power-compensated DSC. These two methods are widely believed to be fundamentally different. This is not generally true, on the contrary, both methods give the same physicochemical information depending merely on the quality of the instrument. This is shown on the firm ground of the theory of linear thermal systems. The equivalence of both methods becomes more clear from the viewpoint of linear filtering. From a discussion of current applications, new possibilities to overcome some of the limitations are outlined.