Calorimetry is the primary technique for measuring the thermal properties of materials to establish a connection between temperature and specific physical properties of substances and is the only method for direct determination of the enthalpy associated with the process of interest.
Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is a thermo-analytical technique in which the difference in the amount of heat required to increase the temperature of a sample and reference is measured as a function of temperature. Both the sample and reference are maintained at nearly the same temperature throughout the experiment. Generally, the temperature program for a DSC analysis is designed such that the sample holder temperature increases linearly as a function of time. The reference sample should have a well-defined heat capacity over the range of temperatures to be scanned.