Permittivity of a composite of cellulose, mineral oil, and water nanoparticles: theoretical assumptions

Abstract

The paper presents results of testing permittivity of an oil-impregnated electric pressboard containing water nanoparticles depending on AC frequency, moisture content level and the temperature of samples. A new method has been developed for converting experimentally obtained frequency dependences of permittivity determined with the frequency-domain spectroscopy (FDS) to the reference temperature of 293 K (20 °C) using exponential dependence of the relaxation time versus temperature. Activation energy of the permittivity relaxation time has been determined for a moist oil-impregnated electric insulation pressboard. It has been established that variations of the moisture content level in a composite of cellulose, mineral oil, and water nanoparticles do not cause any changes in the relaxation time activation energy value, neither in energy states of electrons in potential wells nor in the structure of water nanoparticles. It has been also found that the conversion of experimentally obtained permittivity versus frequency dependences determined with the FDS method to the reference temperature of 293 K (20 °C) eliminates temperature dependences that occur in characteristics based directly on measurement results. Once the relative permittivity is converted to the reference temperature it is only its dependence on the moisture content level that remains.