Organic compounds can be used as temperature calibrants in fast scanning calorimetry. Their advantages include ease of surface cleaning of the calorimetric chip and good thermal contact with the chip surface. Among several compounds tested, benzoic acid was identified as a convenient and reliable calibrant for temperatures below approximately 130 °C. However, organic calibrants often exhibit unusual heating rate dependencies of the onset temperatures of melting. This phenomenon can be semi-quantitatively explained by considering different heat flows within the sensor. Notably, the thermal resistance between the heater and thermopile, often overlooked, introduces an additional time constant that can sometimes result in a negative apparent thermal lag. In addition, the onset temperatures are influenced by factors such as sample position, thickness, surface wetting, and spreading. These factors limit the accuracy of transition temperature determinations to approximately ±1 K below 130 °C and ±5 K up to 220 °C.
This study aimed to clarify the secondary crystallization process of low-isotacticity polypropylene (LT-PP). LT-PP demonstrates an exceptionally low crystallization rate at room temperature, which is approximately 1/5000 lower than that of isotactic PP (iPP). During the secondary crystallization of LT-PP at 30 °C, the thickness of lamellar (c-axis) and a- and b-axes of crystallite size remained constant. In addition, no significant change was observed in the CC-C bending vibration. It seems that the direction of the CC-C molecular order is similar to the thickness direction. This vibration mode may be associated with changes in the thickness of the lamellae. To explain the log(t) dependence of crystallinity, the Seto–Frank model was employed.