Study of Breakdown Voltage of Vegetables oil with SiO2 Nanoparticle Additive

This paper investigates the suitability of vegetable oils to replace mineral oil based on its AC breakdown voltage, partial discharge and viscosity. The purpose of the study is to analyze the effect of the nanofluids containing SiO2 nanoparticle in vegetables oils; namely, Coconut oil and Palm oil. A nanofluid is a fluid containing nanoparticles. However, the precise effects on the electrical properties is still uncertain. For decades, transformers use petroleum-based mineral oil because of its good dielectric properties and cooling capability. Coconut oil (CO) and Palm oil (PO) are thought to be suitable alternatives to replace mineral oil as transformer oil as they are sustainable and available in plenty as natural resources. It was obtained in this study that the breakdown voltages of these raw oils have fulfilled the standard specifications of good insulating liquid. However, the addition of SiO2 did not improve the AC breakdown voltage and viscosity of coconut oil and palm oil at different temperatures. However, the addition of SiO2 gave positive results in the values of partial discharges in which the presence of the nanoparticles has greatly reduced the mean volume of partial discharges for both coconut oil and palm oil.