Study on Breakdown Voltage for Vegetable Oils With Additive TiO2

High voltage power transformers commonly used petroleum-based mineral oil for cooling and insulation purposes. Researchers are looking for suitable vegetable oils as alternatives to mineral oil to be used as transformer oil. The alternative vegetable oils are biodegradable, non-toxic and environmentally friendly. They may require some processing and modification to improve some of their properties to ascertain their safe use in power and distribution transformers as well as in high voltage equipment. This paper presents a study on the AC breakdown voltages of Palm Oil (PO) and Coconut Oil (CO) with presence of an additive. PO and CO are chosen as they are locally produced oils in Malaysia and easily obtained. The type of additive used in this study is Titanium dioxide TiO2. TiO2 nanoparticles was added into PO and CO at volume concentration of 0.1% to 0.5%. The effect of different gap distance of electrode 1.5mm, 2.5mm and 3.5mm was studied. The temperature of oil is controlled at 30oC. This paper provides a comparative assessment of breakdown properties through experimental investigation of PO and CO before and after the additive is added according to ASTM D1816 standard. From the experimental result, the PO have slightly higher breakdown voltage compared to CO. From all oil sample data recorded, it can be concluded that the breakdown voltage had increased to the increase in gap distance of electrode under presence of TiO2.