Suppression of electrical treeing by addition of lithium carbonate to low-density polyethylene

Abstract

Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is used widely as an electric insulating material in electric power cables. The generation of electrical treeing due to aging of LDPE may lose the reliability of its insulating capability. Therefore it is important to suppress its treeing and to improve its electrical properties so that the reliability of cables can be improved. For this purpose, the authors prepared LDPE to which various inorganic materials were added. This investigation focuses particularly on lithium carbonate and quartz which were effective in suppressing the treeing when added to LDPE. Lithium carbonate-added (0.25 phr) LDPE in two hours of discharge showed the tree length 150 μm shorter than that (560 μm) of nonadded LDPE, exhibiting an obvious suppressing effect on treeing generation. It was found that this effect was more significant than quartz-added LDPE and even at elevated temperatures lithium carbonate-added LDPE exhibited suppression of treeing. The thermal decomposition temperature at which lithium carbonate-added (1 phr) LDPE loses 50 percent of its weight rose 100°C more than nonadded LDPE and 60°C more than that of quartz-added LDPE, which showed improvement in heat resistance of LDPE.