Annealing and thermal history relaxation of polymer nanocomposites with hyperbranched polymer particles

The thermal relaxation of polystyrene-star polymer composites was analysed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Annealing was performed prior to the onset of glass transition at various logarithmically spaced time intervals (1, 10, 100 h). Modulated-temperature DSC (mT-DSC) was performed to separate the glass transition temperature (Tg) inflection as a storage heat capacity (Cp¿) event and the relaxation enthalpy as a loss heat capacity (Cp¿) event.