July 28^th 2010. Dr. Shihdeh Joudeh, the Director of the Chemical, Biological and Drugs Analysis Center (CBDA) at the University, participated in a workshop on thermal analyses of polymers in the United States. The workshop included analyzing several types of material including plastic and drugs, addressing a number of issues such as measuring the degree of stiffness and fracture of materials, finding several constants such as heat capacity, melting temperature, and factors that are used in order to determine the expiry date of food within two hours. Thermal analysis is a branch of materials science in which the properties of materials are studied as they change with temperature.

Dr. Joudeh spoke about the DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry) and TGA (Thermogravimetric Analysis) techniques that are used at An-Najah University by the Polymerization Unit at the CBDA. Both DSC and TGA are often used to characterize pharma material. While the DSC is able to differentiate between different polymorphic structures and can investigate the transformations that occur during the polymorphic transformation, the TGA is used to measure residual solvents and moisture and to determine solubility of pharma materials in solvents.

Dr. Joudeh mentioned that those techniques have been approved by the Palestine Standards Institution and called upon researchers and scientists at the University to conduct more studies and research work on those techniques and employ them in their projects.