Calibration coefficient of a heat-flow DSC - Part II. Optimal calibration procedure

One-point (Mettler) and many-point (Netzsch) heat flow calibration of a DSC is discussed. It is shown that the two types of calibration are the alternative extremes between quick but rough procedure and time-consuming but accurate one. One-point calibration compares a 'typical' function k(T) at the melting point of indium. with the measured value for particular DSC and multiplies k(T) by a scaling factor. Many-point calibration is based on general mathematical procedure, namely fitting a set of experimental values of sensitivity to a polynomial. The polynomial coefficients are evaluated by the method of least squares. Based on the relationship between the sensitivity of a thermocouple and calibration coefficient of a DSC sensor made from it, two-point heat flow calibration is suggested. This is an optimal calibration procedure, for the relationship contains only two unknown coefficients. An example of how to perform the two-point calibration with Netzsch-Proteus Software is described in the Appendix.