Specific heat and excess heat capacity of grout with phase change materials using heat conduction microcalorimetry

•With microcalorimetry (MC) it was possible to measure thermal events in heterogeneous grout.•The melting and crystallisation in phase change materials was successfully obtained by MC.•Large samples (10 g) could be tested accurately in non-isothermal MC.•Non-isothermal MC were able to properly capture the features of cyclic-temperature tests.•MC is proposed as a standard test for specific/latent heat in heterogeneous (cementitious) systems.•The calibration carried out using standard reference material shows that MC results are only < 2% erroneous.