Determining DSC Heat Release Rate Sensitivity to Improve Thermal Safety Evaluation

For more than two decades, different methods for estimating the time to maximum rate under adiabatic conditions (TMR_ad) have been developed. When it comes to the traditional quick screening using non-adiabatic experiments, Keller et al and Stoessel work have set the industry gold-standard by using a single dynamic DSC run with milligrams of material. Advances in thermal analysis and computational power gave rise to isoconversional methods, where a more complex and lengthy DSC experimental protocol is required but return much accurate and user-defined scenario outputs when compared to the traditional approach. In the work described herein, we leveraged from the knowledge obtained in DSC analysis done for thermal safety evaluation purposes and were able to estimate the heat release rate at T_onset for any material handled at Hovione plants after a single DSC run. This enables the calculation of a TMR_ad with a better compromise between speed and the intrinsic conservative nature of the previous traditional safety calculations, thus improving risk perception and avoiding unnecessary red flags or time-consuming actions during process chemistry development.