Thermal Analysis Instrumentation

Thermogravimetry (TGA) is a technique that measures the change in weight of a sample as it is heated, cooled or held at constant temperature. Its main use is to characterize materials with regard to their composition. Our TGA instrument is extremely useful in determining thermal stability, decomposition kinetics, quantitative content analysis, adsorption/desorption, determination of Curie points, and evaporation. Attaching an evolved gas analysis (EGA) technique, helps the identification of decomposition products, solvents and solvates.

Thermomechanical analysis (TMA) is used to measure dimensional changes of a material as a function of temperature. Thermal expansion and effects such as softening, crystallization and solid-solid transitions determine the potential applications of a material and provide important information about its composition.

Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) is used to measure the mechanical and viscoelastic properties of a material as a function of temperature, time and frequency while it is subjected to an oscillating stress. Depending on the measurement mode and the sample geometry, DMA determines either the shear modulus (G), or the Young’s modulus (E). A DMA instrument can determine the viscoelastic behavior, glass transition, damping behavior, phase transitions, relaxation behavior, gelation, mechanical modulus, and softening of materials.

Thermo-optical analysis (TOA) is a powerful method which is widely used to visually examine all kinds of thermal transitions. TOA can either be a microscope attached to a DSC instrument, or a Hot Stage microscopy system.

Each thermal analyzer can tell you a great deal about a material’s properties, but sometimes the results and evaluation can be ambiguous from one technique. This is when having more than one thermal analyzer can help develop a full picture of a material’s properties. For example, combining the mass loss data from a TGA instrument with the heat flow information from a DSC instrument could help to better identify a thermal effect than using a standalone system. All of METTLER TOLEDO's thermal analysis systems are connected to the power STAR^e software, so the analysis from different techniques can be easily combined and compared.