Breakdown and partial discharge performance of Palm Fatty Acid Ester (PFAE) oil-based Fe3O4 nanofluids

In high voltage transformer application, mineral oil is typically used as insulation liquids because of its excellence in dielectric strength and cooling medium. However, despite the benefit of mineral oils, these oils are derived from petroleum, which is a non-renewable and non-sustainable source. In this study, palm fatty acids ester (PFAE) is used as insulation oil to investigate the performance of dielectric strength when mixed with Fe
₃
O
₄
(also known as Iron Oxide) nanoparticles. The AC breakdown voltage and partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) were measured to evaluate the performance of samples. In this paper, the PFAE oil mixed with Fe
₃
O
₄
nanoparticles show improvement in AC breakdown voltage and PDIV test which is 42% and 13%, respectively.