The reversible formation reaction of hydrides from metals and hydrogen is used as a prototype of a gas-solid heterogeneous reaction in order to show that a sufficient thermodynamic and kinetic characterization of such reactions can be achieved by isothermal and isobaric DSC measurements. The isobaric measurements essentially provide thermodynamic data such as reaction enthalpy, yield and the pressure-temperature relation. On the other hand, the isothermal measurements can be used for kinetic evaluation due to the small number of parameters. Results are given for the Pd-H and La-Mg-H systems.