Effect of Ionic Additives on the Heterocharge in Carnauba Wax Thermoelectrets

Abstract

Thermopolarization and depolarization studies have been carried out on Carnauba wax electrets with controlled impurity content. While the initial impurity content was found to have little influence on the density of hetero‐charge, the addition of certain inorganic salts, in 10–50 ppm concentration, increased the heterocharge by factors of 2–5. The temperature dependence of electrical conductivity varied considerably with ion doping, but the hetero‐charge density in all samples showed the same thermal activation energy for polarization.