Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) is a thermal analysis technique that looks at how a material’s energy storage varies with temperature. A sample of known mass is heated or cooled and the change in its temperature is tracked. This allows the detection of transitions such as melts, glass transitions, phase changes, and curing.

Because of this flexibility, DSC is used in many industries, including pharmaceuticals, polymers, food, paper, printing, manufacturing, agriculture, semiconductors, and electronics. The biggest advantage of DSC is the ease and speed with which it can be used to see transitions in materials. If you are processing or distilling materials, knowledge of a material’s heat capacity and heat content change (called enthalpy) can be used to estimate how efficiently your process is operating. For these reasons, DSC is the most common thermal analysis technique and is found in many analytical, process control, quality assurance, and R&D laboratories.

In S. Ramakrishnan’s laboratory, knowledge of the glass transition temperature of novel polymer grafted nanoparticles is playing a key role in determining the processing techniques to produce light weight aircraft wings (Department of Defense funded project).

1. Variation of glass transition temperature with chain length for polystyrene (and other commercial polymers).


2. Glass transition temperature (Tg) of polymer –particle composites- variation of Tg with particle loading.


3. Experiment using DSC to study the thermal properties of binary alloys of metals Tin and Lead.