Polarization and Conduction Characteristics of Mineral Oil and Natural Ester Mixed with Nanoparticles

Abstract

Mineral oil (MO) has been widely used in transformers because of its reasonable price and acceptable properties. Currently, alternative liquid insulations have been proposed with some excellent properties. Therefore, the mineral oil characteristics need to be enhanced for high performance to compete with such alternative liquid insulations. This paper aims to study the power frequency dielectric dissipation factor (tanδ) along with polarization and depolarization current (PDC) characteristics of the mineral oil-based nanofluid and natural ester (NE)-based nanofluid. Besides, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) measurement of the test specimen was performed. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO) with 0.01% and also 0.03% volume concentration were used to mix with the unmodified liquid to create liquid insulation-based nanofluid. Then, unmodified mineral oil, unmodified natural ester, mineral oil-based nanofluid, and natural ester-based nanofluid were comparatively investigated. Tanδ at power frequency and the PDC characteristics of such liquids were examined. For PDC measurement, TiO2 clearly affected the polarization current and conduction loss factor, whereas ZnO evidently impacted the depolarization current and polarization loss factor. In the case of FT-IR test results, there was no significant change when the modified insulating liquid was compared with those of the unmodified insulating liquid.