Effect of filler concentration on breakdown

of Isotactic Polypropylene Nano-composites

Presented by
S.Devnath
SUPERVISOR
Dr.K. Elanseralathan
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 Introduction
• Cross linked polyethylene is widely used in
HVDC cables but it is not recyclable one
• Moreover these XLPE bye products will induce
severe space charge accumulation and also it
accelerates the degradation of the life of the
cable. In order to overcome the challenges
faced by XLPE material, most of the research is
towards the recyclable material which can
overcome the XLPE material
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 Why isotactic polypropylene?
• Among all thermoplastic material i-PP is cheap
and the breakdown strength of the PP can be
increased by adding nano-fillers.

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 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

• Sample preparation
– isotactic polypropylene (i-PP) (Sigma Aldrich.) of melt index
12g/10min and isotacticity of 95% which has a melting
temperature of ~170 °C
– Nanoparticles (from Sigma Aldrich) with an average diameter of
25nm were used to prepare nanocomposites with different weight
percentage (viz.1wt%, 2wt%, 3wt%, 4wt% and 5wt %). Xylene
which is a polar solvent is used for dissolving the i-PP which is in
the form of pellets and also for suspension of nano particles
– The thin films of 100micron thickness is obtained using spin coater
which acts as a simple mechanism for precise and uniform
dispersion of material.

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 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

• Test Setup
– The breakdown test setup consists of stainless
steel electrodes as per IEC 602431
– The upper sphere electrode was 25mm diameter
connected to the high voltage source and the
lower flat electrode with the dimensions of
70mmX30 mm with the thickness of 15 mm
connected to ground.

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• In this work, thin film sample using isotactic
polypropylene is stressed with high frequency
AC (10 kHz and 20 kHz), HVDC waveforms
(14kV DC) source and with the superimposed of
HVDC + High Frequency AC output waveforms
• 4specimens were tested for each
nanocomposites with various nanoparticle
content and the average value was taken as the
breakdown strength.
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Overall setup

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 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
• The test sample is stressed under three
conditions i.e at power frequency(50Hz), high
frequency(10 and 20kHz) and at
superimposed AC and DC
• Two types of test samples are considered for
the experiment
1. i-pp /TiO2 with different filler concentration and
2. i-PP / ZnO with different filler concentration

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Breakdown voltage of TiO2 and ZnO nanocomposite under power frequency AC stress

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Breakdown voltage of TiO2 and ZnO nanocomposite under DCstress

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Breakdown voltage of TiO2 and ZnO nanocomposite under High Frequency AC stress (10 kHz)

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 Breakdown voltage of TiO2 and ZnO
nanocomposites stressed under High
Frequency AC (20 kHz.)

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Breakdown voltage of TiO2 nano composites stressed
under HVDC+High Frequency AC wave form of 20 kHz

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 Breakdown voltage of ZnO nanocomposites
stressed under HVDC+High Frequency AC wave
form of 20 kHz

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 CONCLUSION
• In all the stresses except DC stress i.e., Power
frequency AC , High Frequency AC of 10 kHz
and 20 kHz, superimposed stress (HVDC+ High
Frequency AC) , the TiO2 showed to be
promising one up to 3wt%
• Thus TiO2/i-PP can be used as a potential
recyclable material for future use.

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