TA Instruments Blog

Valentine’s Day is usually about hearts, flowers, and sweet messages, but this year, we found romance somewhere unexpected: inside a rheometer. With two iconic chocolates as our leading characters, milk chocolate and milk chocolate wrapped in a white crème embrace, we discovered that chocolate has a lot to teach us about love, chemistry, and how relationships behave under heat, pressure, and time.

While many instruments can measure DMA type properties (phase, tan delta, etc), many are not performing ‘real’ DMA experiments. On the surface, Dynamic Mechanical Analysis seems straightforward: apply periodic stress/strain and measure the sample’s mechanical response including the phase relationship, revealing characteristics like stiffness (storage modulus) and damping (loss modulus).

Developing high-performance materials for demanding applications requires predicting their behavior over a wide range of time scales. Rheology and DMA are powerful tools to understand and predict viscoelastic behavior, including how materials will respond to sudden forces or years of continuous use.

As lithium-ion batteries evolve to meet demands for increased energy density, safety, and form factor versatility, one component remains central to their capacity and reliability: the separator.

In collaboration with Neil Cunningham, Founder of The Centre for Industrial Rheology, we’re excited to share his expert perspective on the evolving role of rheology in formulation science.

Heat shrink tubing appears simple at first glance: wrap it around your wires, apply a heat gun, and voila – perfectly insulated wires every time. But these tubes are more complex than they seem.

Tennis players of all levels know that the right ball can make or break your game. But how do different balls compare, and how can manufacturers reliably measure these differences?

Grab your favorite mug and get ready for a caffeinated clash of titans! We all know that coffees produced in different regions are distinct; like wine, the taste will vary with soil, climate, and altitude. Some of our lab members are partial to the distinct flavors from Colombia and Brazil when it comes to their cups of coffee.

Innovation in materials science is a continuous pursuit, driven by the demand for lighter, stronger, more durable, and more reliable components. This is especially critical in the aerospace and defense industries, where materials must perform reliably under extreme conditions—including intense mechanical stress, wide temperature fluctuations, and long-term environmental exposure.

In battery manufacturing, quality starts with the slurry. For QA/QC professionals, ensuring the consistency and performance of electrode slurries is not just a checkpoint — it's a quality control imperative. Slurry quality directly impacts electrode uniformity, adhesion, and ultimately, battery performance and lifespan.