The purpose of this study is to examine the thermal behavior of saturated fatty acids [CH3(CH2)(n)COOH], where n varies from n = 10 to n = 16, during heating. The studies were performed over a temperature range of ambient temperature to 350 degrees C in a flowing atmosphere of nitrogen, using a SDT 2960 simultaneous TGA-DTA unit. The acids showed two endotherms due to melting at a lower temperature and vaporization at the higher temperature, which is a zero order process. The influence of flow rate and heating rate on the melting points is reported. The latent heat (Delta H-evap) of vaporization process is calculated by the Antoine equation and the Clausius-Clapeyron equation at different temperature ranges. The activation energy (E-act) was calculated from the rising temperature experiments, using the Arrhenius equation. These observations should be of use in the characterization of pharmaceutical excipients.