Melting of benzene in a poly(ethyl acrylate) network studied by TMDSC

First order transitions of a solvent in a gel differ from those of the solvent alone. In particular, the existence of either several endothermic peaks, or of a broad one is a common feature. In this respect, melting of a solvent sorbed in a polymer matrix presents a phenomenology similar to that of a semi-crystalline polymer. In this work temperature modulated differential scanning calorimetry (TMDSC) has been applied to study the melting behaviour of benzene in a poly(ethyl acrylate), PEA, network. A strong frequency dependence is found both of the real and imaginary part of the complex heat capacity in the transition regions. The kinetic response of the material to the temperature modulation is analyzed with the model proposed by Toda et al., developed for the kinetic melting behaviour of crystalline polymers, which seems to be applicable also to the system studied in this work.