Investigation of CeO2 nanoparticles on the performance enhancement of InsulatingOils

Obaidur Rahman; Arif Ali; Ahmad Hussain; Shakeb Ahmad Khan; Mohd Tariq; Shabana Urooj; Lucian Mihet-Popa; Qasim Khan

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19264

Investigation of CeO₂ nanoparticles on the performance enhancement of InsulatingOils

Heliyon. 2023 Aug 21;9(9):e19264. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19264. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Obaidur Rahman¹, Arif Ali¹, Ahmad Hussain², Shakeb Ahmad Khan³, Mohd Tariq¹, Shabana Urooj⁴, Lucian Mihet-Popa⁵, Qasim Khan⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, ZHCET, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, 14001, India.
³ Department of Electrical Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
⁴ Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh, 11671, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Faculty of Information Technology, Engineering and Economics, Oestfold University College, 1757, Halden, Norway.
⁶ Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77840, USA.

Abstract

Integrating nanotechnology in dielectric fluid significantly inhibits losses and boosts overall dielectric fluid performance. There has been research done on the effects of introducing various nanoparticles, such as titania, alumina, silica nanodiamonds, etc. In this paper, a novel nanoparticle, Ceria (CeO₂), has been used, and its properties were examined using the FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared) spectrum, the XRD (X-ray Diffraction) spectrum, the SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), and the TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy). This paper illustrates an efficient dielectric fluid prepared by the successful dispersion of Cerium Oxide (CeO₂) nanoparticles in various concentrations into four commercial oils, namely mineral oil, rapeseed oil, synthetic ester oil, and soybean oil, to enhance and improve their dielectric characteristics. The performance investigation emphasises breakdown strength enhancement and other dielectric properties of the colloidal solution comprising different nanoparticle (NP) concentrations. Various commercial oils are used as a base in nano-oil to diversify their applicability as dielectric fluids by measuring the correlation in dielectric parameters and statistically assessing their applicability with normal and Weibull distributions. The obtained experimental data sets were analyzed using the Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox in MATLAB. The aging measurement has been done only on mineral oil, and results were matched using a predictive model of statistics and the Machine Learning Toolbox in MATLAB. Well-dispersed CeO₂ NPs in the insulating oils lead to a significant increase in AC breakdown strength. The effect of ageing on the dielectric properties of nano oils yields better results than conventionally aged oil. It has been observed that the breakdown voltage is enhanced by up to 30% for mineral oil at an optimal concentration of 0.01 g/L, 9% for synthetic ester oil at 0.03 g/L, 18% for rapeseed oil at 0.02 g/L, and 19% for soybean oil at 0.03 g/L nanoparticle concentration. Following the dispersion of CeO₂ nanoparticles, the dielectric constant of all insulating oils has also significantly improved. The overall experimental results are promising and show the potential of the CeO₂ NPs-based nano oil as an efficient and highly performing dielectric oil for different power applications.

Keywords: Aging; Breakdown strength; Dielectric constant; Dissipation factor; Insulating oil; Nanodielectric fluid; Nanoparticle.