TGA-Sorption System - Innovation Expands Flexibility

The new TGA-Sorption System is designed to analyze materials under defined conditions of temperature and relative humidity (RH). The design concept combines the performance and versatility of the large furnace TGA/DSC 1 or TGA/SDTA85x e with a unique interface. This allows the humidity generator to be added within a few minutes. Features and benefits:

• Unique flexibility – a highly sensitive Thermogravimetric Analyzer combined with full sorption analysis capability
  
• Defined environment – the effect of moisture and temperature on material properties can be easily investigated
  
• Pre-conditioning versatility – methods allow the use of elevated preconditioning temperatures (up to 150 °C)
  
• DSC signal – simultaneous measurements of sorption enthalpies
  
• Modularity – an existing large furnace TGA/DSC 1 or TGA/SDTA85x e Thermogravimetric Analyzer can be quickly expanded to perform humidity experiments

Sorption analysis plays an important role in a number of different industries, such as food, pharmaceutical and polymer. The main applications focus on storage and stability of materials or the activity of ingredients depending on the amount of absorbed moisture. Also of great significance is the plasticization influence on materials and the resulting product performance.

Application Example

Plasticization
Water can drastically change the physical and chemical properties of polymers. The effects are seen as a:

• Reduction in mechanical strength through plasticization
  
• Shift in the glass transition to lower temperatures due to increased free volume and swelling.

Polymers such as polyamides absorb appreciably more moisture than most other engineering plastics. The example shows the measurement of a sample of polyamide 6 at 24 °C. The relative humidity was switched from 10 to 95% RH to determine the uptake of water. Under these conditions, there was an increase in weight of 8.3% after about 10 hours at 95% RH.