Heat capacities of 2,4-dichlorobenzaldehyde have been measured with a high-precision automatic adiabatic calorimeter over the temperature range from (79 to 371) K. The melting temperature, molar enthalpy, and entropy of fusion were determined by the heat capacity measurements to be (347.24 +/- 0.13) K, (20468 +/- 19) J (.) mol(-1), and (58.94 +/-0.04) J (.) K-1 (.) mol(-1), respectively. The melting temperatures for the sample and the absolutely pure compound have been obtained from fractional melting experiments to be (347.230 and 347.619) K, respectively, and the chemical purity of the sample was calculated to be 0.9921 mol fraction according to the Van't Hoff equation. Moreover, the solid-to-liquid phase transition of the substance was further investigated by using DSC technique. The results obtained from the heat capacity measurements were in agreement with those from the DSC analysis. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.