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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