Insight into the dielectric response of transformer oil-based nanofluids

The oil-based nanofluids with greater dielectric strength have attracted much attention as a crucial insulating materials in high-voltage oil-immersed power equipment. In fact, the different microstructures of the transformer oil-based nanofluids (TNFs) would result in different dielectric properties. In this work, the broadband dielectric spectroscopy measurement was used to establish the linkage between the electric double layer (EDL) and dielectric response properties of TNFs which was performed at 298K temperature and with frequency range from 10-2Hz∼106Hz. The modified Havriliak-Negami (HN) model function was used to analyze the measured results. The results demonstrate that both the real and imaginary parts of dielectric spectra of two kinds of oil are composed of the conductivity and polarization process. Compared with pure oil, two polarization process could be observed for the TNFs, explained by the EDL structure reasonably. The introduction of the EDL structure provides an idea to account for the insulating strength improvement of TNFs for the first time.