Adding Real-Time Image Observation Capability during Thermal Analyses

Thermal analysis techniques have been widely used in polymer industries. They can help identify polymer resins, quantify impurities, evaluate product crystallinity, and crystal melting, measure mechanical properties, provide compositional analysis, and troubleshooting any production issues. However, sometimes, people find it is difficult to understand some of the thermal measurement results. Adding a real-time image or video capability has big implications to ensure better understanding of the analytical results. It is reported that over 90% of the information transmitted by the brain is visual. Being able to visualize the changes of the sample during a measurement can help better understand unexpected testing results (e.g., fake transitions), and also obtain additional important information (e.g., crystal size, additives). In this presentation, practical examples are provided on using thermal analysis instruments (DSC, STA and DMA) with the real-time visual capability for analyzing polymeric materials. Case studies include how to identify fish-eye contaminations in polymer processing, monitor polymer color and dimension changes during heating, visualize and quantify polymer crystallization and crystal size differences with different processing cooling rates, interpret and troubleshoot unexpected thermal testing results.