Preparation of fullerene/epoxy resin composite with fine dispersion and its breakdown strength

Fullerene is likely to form aggregates so that it is difficult to disperse it well in a polymer matrix, and few reports have been made on electrical insulation properties of fullerene filled composite as electrical insulating material. This paper deals with fullerene dispersion method in conventional epoxy resin (EP) and breakdown strength (BDS) of the composite with different filler loading of fullerene. Composite materials added with fullerenes of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.6 weight% were prepared in a plate shape with a thickness of 0.5 mm using two different dispersion methods, i.e. fullerene dissolved and fullerene direct mixing methods, and neat specimen was also prepared for comparison so as to investigate BDS. As a result, it was found that BDS of fullerene/EP composite with good dispersion greatly increased by 30 %. The increase in BDS of the composite is discussed in terms of the inter-particle distance as an index of the dispersion degree.