TEMPERATURE CALIBRATION OF AN ELECTRICAL COMPENSATION DSC ON COOLING USING THERMALLY STABLE HIGH-PURITY LIQUID-CRYSTALS

Temperature calibration of DSCs is usually carried out on heating. In order to accurately control the temperature during cooling experiments, the calibration has to be carried out on cooling. Therefore, three high-purity, thermally stable liquid crystals were used to perform a temperature calibration of an electrcial compensation DSC on cooling. All three liquid crystals have several liquid crystalline phases, and they all were purified to a 99.9% level. Temperatures of the isotropic to nematic or cholesteric and the mesophase to mesophase transitions were used. It was verified that these liquid crystals have sufficient thermal stability for carrying out the calibration on cooling. The dependence of the real temperature on the indicated temperature has been established for all the combinations of the heating and cooling rates of practical interest. It is also shown that the van't Hoff equation can only be applied to the crystal to a liquid crystal transition, but not to the liquid crystal to liquid crystal or liquid crystal to isotropic transitions.