Equipment
The analyzer usually consists of a high-precision balance with a pan (generally platinum) loaded with the sample. That pan resides in a furnace and is heated or cooled during the experiment. A different process using a quartz crystal microbalance has been devised for measuring smaller samples on the order of a microgram (versus milligram with conventional TGA). The sample is placed in a small electrically heated oven with a thermocouple to accurately measure the temperature. The atmosphere may be purged with an inert gas to prevent oxidation or other undesired reactions. A computer is used to control the instrument.
Read more about this topic: Thermogravimetric Analysis
Famous quotes containing the word equipment:
“At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.”
—Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)
“Why not draft executive and management brains to prepare and produce the equipment the $21-a-month draftee must use and forget this dollar-a-year tommyrot? Would we send an army into the field under a dollar-a-year General who had to be home Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.”
—J.G. (James Graham)