Faster Polymer Testing

“Heat then chill.”  Those time-tested instructions don’t just apply to successful Jell-O production, but to polymers in a mold and, eventually, in your car dashboard or what goes into your microwave.  So PerkinElmer’s (www.perkinelmer.com; Waltham, MA) line of high-performance differential scanning calorimeters (DSCs) bring the extremes to test manufacturing polymers: mimicking the rapid heat and cooling rates they will endure during the molding process.  The high-end, the double-furnace DSC 8500, can rapidly heat materials 750° C and cool them to -1000° C in a minute.  The fast heating and cooling is said to reduce polymer analysis times from the typical 45 minutes to just three.