Tzero hermetic pan

The thermal behaviors of the various materials and composite filaments were characterized with a Q200 DSC (TA instruments-Waters L.L. C). The analysis was performed with Tzero hermetic pan (TA instruments-Waters L.L.C) using a nitrogen purge flow of 50 mL/min. Samples of around 10 mg were exposed to heat-cool-heat cycles from -80 to 150 • C at rates of 10 • C/min. Data were analyzed using TA Instruments Universal Analysis 2000 software.

Gel analysis with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was performed using a DSC25 (TA Instruments, USA). Samples were prepared by adding the heated solution to a Tzero hermetic pan (TA Instruments, USA) and allowing gelation to completely occur within the sample pan. Prior to analysis, each pan was equilibrated to room temperature. The DSC heated the samples from 20 °C to 120 °C at 5 °C/min with a matching mass of DI water in the reference chamber. Preliminary experiments showed hysteresis in samples that underwent multiple heating treatments, thus all curves are from the first heating cycle. A baseline was constructed by fitting a linear equation to the heat flow before and after the observed peak, and data is reported as the observed signal with a baseline subtraction. The onset temperature was reported as the point of deviation from the
baseline, while peak temperature was calculated at the maximum heat flow. Changes in enthalpy (ΔH) during transitions were determined by integration of the area below the baseline. Changes in entropy (ΔS) were determined utilizing the Gibbs Free Energy equation (ΔG = ΔH -TΔS). Since ΔG is known to be zero at the midpoint of the transition, the change in entropy was calculated through the rearrangement of the equation to ΔS = ΔH/Tmidpoint (Cassanelli, Norton, & Mills, 2018) .