New routes for thermal analysis and calorimetry as applied to polymeric systems

Over the last few decades there has been a strong decrease in the number of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (TA and C) 'practitioners' - scientists w ho know the ins and outs of TA and C and its (im)possibilities and are capa ble of initiating new developments. By contrast, an increasing number of TA and C 'users' are scarcely able to acquire in-depth knowledge of TA and C. It is therefore of great importance that national TA and C societies creat e the infrastructure for dedicated education. In addition, the feasibility of setting up one or more expertise centers per country, where 'practitione rs' can do research, carry out contract research and give advice to users, needs to be investigated. Equally important, the TA and C community needs to address a number of chal lenges in the coming decade with the aim of controlling the 'knowledge cycl e' in the field of polymers: to translate non-optimal properties into impro ved processing conditions or even a more suitable macromolecular architectu re, in order to reduce the lead times for the development and optimization of materials. Although Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry can generally be considered to be 'mature', in specific subareas a large number of new developments take pla ce. A few examples of these developments and of state-of-the-art TA and C a re given: quantitative heat capacity measurements by means of DSC; (very) h igh pressure DSC; real-time morphological analysis and temperature-modulate d X-ray analysis. In addition, a new form of TA and C is discussed: High Pe rformance DSC (HPer DSC), which is also a high rate DSC and a high throughp ut DSC.