Experimental study of breakdown voltage for different types of vegetable oils available in Bangladesh

The increasing crisis of petroleum oil that is currently leading to uncertainty in its sustainability has forced the researchers worldwide to search alternative insulating liquid to mineral oil. Researchers are looking for suitable vegetable oils as alternatives. These oils are biodegradable, environmental friendly and available in different countries including Bangladesh. They may require some processing and modification to improve some of their properties to ascertain their safe use in power and distribution transformers as well as in high voltage equipment. This paper provides a comparative assessment of breakdown property through experimental investigation of several vegetable oils with respect to mineral oil. It is found that the vegetable oils are suitable for low voltage application (less than 11KV) to use as dielectric fluid.