Effective Tuning of the Performance of Conductive Silicon Compound by Few-Layered Graphene Additives.

Zhensheng Wu,Hao Ren,Fuqiang Tian,Yu Chen,Haitao Yang

doi:10.3390/nano12060907

Abstract

Electric conductive silicon compounds are widely used and essential in electric power, energy and information industries. However, there are still problems such as insufficient stability of physical and chemical properties and weak electrical conductivity. To address the problem of low contact reliability of electrical joints in high-power transmission and distribution equipment, we assessed the influence of mechanically exfoliated graphene (MEG) content on the physicochemical properties of electrical joint compound (EJC). Varying amounts of few-layer MEG prepared with the conventional mechanically exfoliated method was added to the conductive silicon compounds, of which various physicochemical properties, such as penetration, drip point, volume resistivity and frictional properties were systematically assessed and compared with those with copper additive. We found that the addition of MEG effectively enhanced the temperature and mechanical stability of EJC and significantly reduced the material volume resistivity. This work paves the way to improve the key performance of electric conductive silicon compounds with advanced nanomaterials.

Highlights

electrical joint compound (EJC) are mainly composed of base oil, conductive filler and thickener, which are mainly used to increase the actual effective contact area by coating the contact surface of the equipment, reducing the electrical contact resistance, hindering the energy consumption and overheating of electrical joints [4]
Y.H. et al and Lim, S. et al investigated the electrical conductivity of graphene and the effect of copper paste incorporation on the microstructure and properties of EJC; the results showed that graphene incorporation resulted in lower rheological properties and higher electrical conductivity of EJC [13,14]
We use mechanically exfoliated graphene (MEG) as an additive to tune the physicochemical properties of EJCs. Various measurements, such as penetration, drip point, volume resistivity and frictional properties, were conducted to systematically characterize the performance of the resulted EJCs; we found that the addition of MEG is highly effective in improving drip point and frictional properties, as well as reducing penetration and volume resistivity

Summary

Introduction

With a growth of modern ultrahigh voltage transmission coverage, the load of highvoltage transmission and substation equipment grows rapidly. After long-term operation, the equipment usually contracts the problems of contact reliability decreasing and overheating [1–3]. Electrical joint compounds (EJCs) have been proposed as a promising alternative to enhance the electrical contact reliability. EJCs are mainly composed of base oil, conductive filler and thickener, which are mainly used to increase the actual effective contact area by coating the contact surface of the equipment, reducing the electrical contact resistance, hindering the energy consumption and overheating of electrical joints [4]. In addition to high-temperature stability and moderate hardness, high-quality EJC should have good electrical conductivity and appropriate friction properties, and the latter two properties are more difficult to improve. The frictional and conductivity enhancement of EJC has attracted tremendous research interests.

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion