The effect of surface modification on the dielectric properties of polypropylene/aluminum nitride nanocomposites

Abstract

Due to the excellent dielectric properties and potential high operation temperature, polypropylene (PP) is considered as a great potential for renewable High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cable insulation material. However, the development and application of PP are limited by its relatively poor thermal conductivity [1]. Nano-fillers with high thermal conductivity, such as aluminum nitride (AlN) have been used to improve the thermal conductivity and maintain the dielectric properties at the same time. Based on recent studies, the polymer-particle interphase region is believed to have a significant influence on the dielectric properties of nanocomposites. Thus, the proposed work is to investigate the influence of polymer-particle interphase by obtaining diverse particle surface states via different surface treatments.

The experimental work start with sample preparation. Two different Silane Coupling Agents (SCA) were selected to obtain distinct surface states of Nano-AlN. The PP/AlN nanocomposite samples were made by solvent blend method with different AlN weight percent (5 wt.% and 10 wt.%). For AC breakdown strength, samples were placed between two ball electrodes with an increasing voltage of 500 V/s until samples breakdown. Dielectric spectroscopy test was used to analyze the polymer-particle interphase properties, the applied voltage is 3 V with the frequency range of 10-1~105 Hz, and the sample thickness is 210 μm.

In present work, two different SCA treated Nano-AlN with PP nanocomposites show a distinct difference on both AC breakdown and dielectric response results, which indicate the dielectric properties of PP/AlN nanocomposites are highly related to the polymer-particle interphase state. In order to obtain a more comprehensively understanding of interphase properties, more work in regard of the dielectric properties of Nano-AlN/PP need to be investigated in the future.

[1] X. Huang, P. Jiang and T. Tanaka, "A review of dielectric polymer composites with high thermal conductivity", IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 8-16, 2011.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Xinyu Wang: orcid.org/0000-0001-9434-2906

ORCID for Thomas Andritsch: orcid.org/0000-0002-3462-022X

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