4.6. Thermal Analysis

Calorimetric studies were performed in a Perkin Elmer DSC 4000 differential scanning calorimeter (Perkin Elmer, Waltham, MA, USA). A DSC aluminium pan (B0143016) containing the organogel sample (ca. 5 mg) was placed in the DSC oven. An empty pan was used as reference. Samples were placed inside the DSC oven at room temperature, cooled to 5 °C (holding time of 1 min) and then analysed at 10 °C/min from 5 to 90 °C followed by a cooling curve to 5 °C at the same rate, under a nitrogen atmosphere. Melting and crystallization temperature peaks (Tm, Tc), their onset temperatures (Onset Tm, Onset Tc) and enthalpy changes (ΔHm, ΔHc) were calculated using Pyris software version 11.1 (Perkin Elmer, Waltham, MA, USA).

The entropy change (ΔS) can be calculated from Equation (1), assuming that at the crystallization temperature, the Gibb’s free energy tends to zero [27], where ΔG is the Gibb’s free energy change, and ΔS is the entropy change during crystallization, and ΔHc is the enthalpy change during crystallization, and Tc is the peak temperature during crystallization.