Thermoanalytical Analysis

THERMOANALYTICAL ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION

Thermoanalytical methods essentially encompass such techniques that are based entirely on the con-cept of heating a sample followed by well-defned modified procedures, such as : gravimetric analysis, differ-ential analysis and titrimetric analysis. In usual practice, data are generated as a result of continuously re-corded curves that may be considered as ‘thermal spectra’. These thermal spectra also termed as ‘thermograms, often characterize a single or multicomponent system in terms of :

(a) temperature dependencies of its thermodynamic properties, and

(b) physicochemical reaction kinetics.

Broadly speaking the thermoanalytical methods are normally classified into the following three categories, namely :

(i) Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA),

(ii) Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA), and

(iii) Thermometric Titrations.

All the above mentioned techniques shall be discussed briefly with specific reference to their theory, instrumentation, methodology and applications wherever necessary.