Performance Evaluation of Aqueous NaCl Diffused Silicone Rubber Nano Micro composites for High Voltage Applications

In the current work, room-temperature vulcanized (RTV) silicon rubber nano/micro-composites were synthesized and subjected to an aqueous NaCl solution. RTV silicon rubber is the most preferred coating material used in outdoor high-voltage insulators. The electrical, thermal and physiochemical performance due to liquid permeation was investigated. Test specimens i.e., neat RTV-silicon rubber, RTV-silicon rubber +40% micro-ATH, RTV-silicon rubber + 4% nano-SiO
2
and RTV-silicon rubber + 10% micro-ATH + 5% nano-SiO
2
were prepared for experimentation. Further, all of the specimens were exposed to water droplet-initiated corona discharges as per the IEC 60112 standard for the measurement of corona inception voltage (CIV) and leakage current flowing through the material. The results showed that RTV silicon rubber loaded with silica nanoparticles outperformed other samples followed by nano-micro composite (10% micro-ATH + 5% nSiO
2
).