Thermal characterization of the as-received polymer sample using fast scanning calorimetry

• New procedure for the preparation of test specimens crystallized at defined fast cooling rates.
• An experimental technique to analyze the initial or as received sample using fast scanning calorimetry.
• The technique contains procedures to detect outliers and compensate the thermal lag.

An experimental approach to analyze the melting behavior of externally crystallized polymeric material is introduced. Because of the large reorganization effects at the low heating rates in conventional DSC fast scanning calorimetry (FSC) is used with a heating rate of 1000 K/s. Isotactic polypropylene (iPP) samples crystallized differently are analyzed in the first test. Because of the undefined heat contact during the first heating run, oil was used as a contact medium. Due to the experimental uncertainty of single measurements, multiple measurements were performed for a range of sample size. The melting temperature of the initial material was determined from this analysis, which was also used to validate a simple procedure for the preparation of polymer films crystallizing at a pre-selected cooling rate.