Use of the latin square design to study the influence of the experimental parameters on erucamide differential scanning calorimetric curves

Abstract

A Latin square design was used to evaluate the effect of the experimental parameters mass of sample and heating and cooling rates on the melting behaviour of erucamide, which is commonly used as an additive in the production of polyolefin films. The application of the Latin square revealed that the rate of heating is the factor that most influences the erucamide differential scanning calorimetric curve. The mathematical model for predicting the melting temperature of erucamide as a function of the mass of sample and heating and cooling rates was the best sub-set of predictor variables chosen from a complete second-order polynomial.