The Influence of Resistive and Radiative Heating in the Characteristics of Crude Palm Oil Breakdown Voltage as an Alternative for Mineral Oil Insulator

Abstract

Today, an alternative fluid insulator which is renewable and comes from organic chart is needed. The previous researches have shown that CPO-based product, RBDPO, is one of the main alternatives of fluid insulator which has high breakdown value. The testing was conducted by using radiative (microwave) and resistive method. Radiative heating was done for 0.5–5 minutes with 1 minute difference. Resistive heating was done for 0.5–3 minutes with 0.5 minutes difference. After CPO was heated, it was left for 20 hours. After that, 350 millliter out of 500 millliter of CPO was taken to be tested. The aspects tested were breakdown voltage, viscosity voltage and KOH content. The results showed that the heated CPO has better breakdown voltage compared to CPO which was not heated. The breakdown voltage value of using resistive heating was 31,15 kV while that of using radiative heating was 19,5 kV. It proved that resistive heating was better than radiative heating. The relation between temperature towards the value of breakdown voltage is that the higher the temperature the higher the breakdown voltage in resistive heating in a linear way while it is fluctuate in radiative heating. The viscosity of CPO was getting lower while the heating temperature was getting higher. The KOH level showed a tendency of getting higher when the temperature of either radiative or resistive treatment was increased.