Thermogravimetry

Thermogravimetry

The Opila lab is equipped with two custom made thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) furnaces.

The TGAs are based around a vertical tube furnace which has the ability to be raised and lowered for fairly rapid heating rates of the sample. The samples are exposed to a controlled gas flow, and suspended from a precision microbalance to measure mass evolution over time. One TGA is equipped with dry, flowing oxygen. The second TGA is equipped with a saturator to control water vapor content in the flowing oxygen gas stream. The data collected can be used to help determine degradation mechanisms and rates of oxidation of high temperature materials.