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 Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106 (10pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/aa8f86

Effect of electrode materials on the space

charge distribution of an Al2O3 nano-
modified transformer oil under impulse
voltage conditions
Qing Yang1 , Mengna Liu1, Wenxia Sima1 and Yang Jin2
1
  State Key Laboratory of Power Transmission Equipment and System Security and New Technology,
Chongqing University, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, People’s Republic of China
2
  Zhejiang Energy-R&D, Yuhang, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 311121, People’s Republic of China

E-mail: yangqing@cqu.edu.cn

Received 22 March 2017, revised 24 September 2017

Accepted for publication 27 September 2017
Published 27 October 2017

Abstract
The combined effect mechanism of electrode materials and Al2O3 nanoparticles on the
insulating characteristics of transformer oil was investigated. Impulse breakdown tests of
pure transformer oil and Al2O3 nano-modified transformer oil of varying concentrations with
different electrode materials (brass, aluminum and stainless steel) showed that the breakdown
voltage of Al2O3 nano-modified transformer oil is higher than that of pure transformer oil
and there is a there is an optimum concentration for Al2O3 nanoparticles when the breakdown
voltage reaches the maximum. In addition, the breakdown voltage was highest with the
brass electrode, followed by that with stainless steel and then aluminum, irrespective of
the concentration of nanoparticles in the transformer oil. This is explained by the charge
injection patterns from different electrode materials according to the results of space charge
measurements in pure and nano-modified transformer oil using the Kerr electro-optic system.
The test results indicate that there are electrode-dependent differences in the charge injection
patterns and quantities and then the electric field distortion, which leads to the difference
breakdown strength in result. As for the nano-modified transformer oil, due to the Al2O3
nanoparticle’s ability of shielding space charges of different polarities and the charge injection
patterns of different electrodes, these two factors have different effects on the electric field
distribution and breakdown process of transformer oil between different electrode materials.
This paper provides a feasible approach to exploring the mechanism of the effect of the
electrode material and nanoparticles on the breakdown strength of liquid dielectrics and
analyzing the breakdown process using the space charge distribution.

Keywords: space charge distribution, Kerr electric-optic system, electrode materials,

breakdown theory, nanoparticles

(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1361-6463/17/465106+10$33.00 1 © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd  Printed in the UK

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106 Q Yang et al

1. Introduction

The insulation characteristics of transformer oil, a widely used

insulating liquid dielectric, are of great interest to engineers.
Factors that influence the insulation properties of transformer
oil include the quality of the liquid dielectric, the duration and
polarity of the voltage, the surface morphology and geometry
of the electrode [1–4]. Moreover, the electrode materials also
affect the breakdown strength, which is greatly influenced by
the space charge in the dielectric. The space charge originates
mainly from charge injection from the electrode, and the accu-
mulation of space charge causes a distortion in the electric
field, which leads to the breakdown of the dielectric [5, 6].
Thus, the breakdown strength of the dielectric is affected by
the electrode materials, which have different quantities and
patterns of space charge injection.
Liquid breakdown involves a unique level of complexity
compared to gas or solid dielectric breakdown. Intrinsical phys-
ical characteristics, such as fluid viscosity, electro-­convection, Figure 1.  Transmission electron microscopy image of Al2O3
temperature, density, and the inner charge distribution com- nanoparticles.
plicate the analysis and modeling of the breakdown and con-
duction mechanisms. Many aspects of liquid breakdown have
been investigated over the last decades but no general theory
has been evolved so far to explain the breakdown in liquids,
and exiting data on breakdown and discharge properties are
scare [7], especially regarding the effect of impulse voltage,
due to the fact that the research on extensive measurement of
space charge in liquid dielectrics is still deficient. The break-
down mechanism of transformer oil is mainly divided into two
theories, one is the bubble-initiated breakdown theory and the
other is streamer breakdown theory [8, 9]. When the impulse
Figure 2.  Plate physical diagrams of stainless steel.
voltage is applied, there is no enough time for the bridge com-
posed of bubbles or impurities to come into being due to the
2.  Experimental details
pulse duration is very short. Hence, the electrical breakdown
process under the impulse voltage is mainly caused by the 2.1.  Impulse breakdown test
streamer development.
Since it has been found the breakdown of liquid dielectrics Here, we chose stainless steel, brass and aluminum as the
is closely related to electric field and space charge in the bulk of electrode materials, and non-ferromagnetic Al2O3 nanopar-
liquid [10–12], researchers have explored different approaches ticles as the additive. The Al2O3 nanoparticles were uni-
to change the space charge in the dielectric, such as the plasma formly dispersed in transformer oil (25#Kelamayi), which
surface treatment on metals to improve surface charge accu- had been filtered to suppress the interference of impurities,
mulation [13, 14] and the nano-modified dielectric [15–18]. using the ultrasonic dispersion technique and the transmis-
In our recent study, we measured the breakdown character- sion electron microscopy image is shown in figure  1 and
istics and space charge distribution of transformer oil mixed diameters are 20 nm. We prepared a number of nanoparticle
with different nanoparticles, and found that nanoparticles can suspensions of different concentrations to test breakdown
increase the density of traps that can capture free charges in voltage depend­ence, which is 0 mg l−1 (pure transformer oil),
a dielectric, which improves the breakdown properties of the 10 mg l−1, 20 mg l−1 and 30 mg l−1. And all these samples
dielectric [17–19]. This implies that nano-modified materials were sent to vacuum drying oven for 72 hours to remove the
are likely to become to be important in the future, however, dissolved gases and moisture, which can avoid premature
the combined effect of nanoparticles and electrode materials breakdown and increase the experiment accuracy. To elimi-
and whether the addition of nanoparticles to transformer oil nate the influence of surface roughness and polarity, we chose
could counteract the effect of the electrode materials are still parallel circular plate electrodes (radius   =  30 mm, thick-
unknown. We also carried out a preliminary exploration of the ness  =  5 mm) with a smooth surface after polishing for the
interaction mechanism between nanoparticles and electrode impulse breakdown experiment. Figure 2 shows the physical
materials using propylene carbonate with a high Kerr constant diagrams of plate electrodes. The gap between the electrodes
[20, 21]. However, it is not yet clear whether this mechanism was 1 mm. The polarity of the impulse voltage did not have a
is applicable to transformer oil, which is used more widely in significant effect on the breakdown voltage of the transformer
practical engineering. oil because the electrodes were symmetric pairs of the same

2
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106
Figure 3.  (a) Space charge measurement platform for transformer oil. (b) Diagram of applied electric field.
material and the same surface condition, which could be veri-
fied by applying voltage of both polarities to the samples. The
impulse breakdown voltage of pure transformer oil and Al2O3
nano-modified transformer oil of different concentrations with
three electrode materials were tested under the standard nega-
tive switching impulse voltage (250/2500 µs) using the rising
voltage method. To increase the accuracy and reliability of
the breakdown data, five step-up processes at least were per-
formed before each breakdown, and the interval time between
two successive experiments was set to 1 min to minimize the
influence of bubbles and surface charges. The final breakdown
data were the average values in each case after the measure-
ment was repeated 10 times.
2.2.  Space charge measurements
The combined effects of the electrode material and nanopar-
ticles in the transformer oil can be explored by studying the
difference of electric field and charge distribution between
the pure oil and nano-modified oil with concentration of
10 mg l−1 (the higher the concentration, the lower the inten-
sity of the outgoing light, and the greater the measurement
error) using the experimental platform based on Kerr electro-
optic effect. For transformer oil, which has a low Kerr con-
stant, brass, aluminum and stainless steel electrodes with a
size of 500  ×  220  ×  140 mm3 were selected to increase the
path length of the linearly polarized light in the dielectric and
enlarge the phase shift to make the detection more obvious. And
an array photodetector of high sensitivity to light was chosen
as the optical signal receiving device, which is composed of
several single-point photodiodes with a width of 0.3 mm and
can detect light density at several position between the elec-
trodes. Before the experiment, the samples were filtered and
dried to eliminate the influence of impurities, bubbles and
moisture, which can improve optical detection precision. A
systematic diagram of the measurement system is illustrated
in figure 3(a). The HV impulse applied in the experiment is
a negative standard switching impulse voltage (250/2500 µs)
with a peak voltage of 54 kV produced by a Marx generator,
and the applied electric field is shown in figure 3(b). The light
source is a He–Ne laser that generates beam with a 633 nm
wavelength and 0.7 mm diameter. The laser beam propagates
3
Q Yang et al
through the polarizer, expander, samples between the par-
allel-plate electrodes in Kerr cell, and analyzer. Then it is
received and converted into voltage signals by LAPD, which
is recorded by the multi-channel oscilloscope. Here, the polar-
izer is set to be parallel to the analyzer to satisfy the condi-
tion of aligned polarizer (AP). Additionally, the gap between
the electrodes was increased to 2.6 mm to enhance the spatial
resolution of the array photodetector. Supposing that the edge
of the cathode is at x  =  0 and the x axis goes from cathode to
anode, we measured the time-varying light intensity signals
at eight positions within the 2.6 mm gap (at 0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2,
1.5, 1.8, 2.1 and 2.4 mm) using an array photodetector in the
x axis direction.
When the voltage was applied, the light intensities obtained
from array photodetector varied with electric field on the basis
of Kerr principle and Jones’ calculus in AP condition:
 
(1) I/I0 = cos2 πBLE2
where I is the emitted light intensity measured by the photode-
tector, I0 is the input light intensity, B is the Kerr constant of
transformer oil, L is the electrode length and E is the electric
field intensity at this position between electrodes.
Define Em as the field magnitude for the first minima with
aligned polarizers related to the Kerr constant B and light
propagation length L:
√
(2) Em = 1/ 2BL.
Also, we can obtain that:
π 
(3) I/I0 = cos2
2
(E/Em ) .
2
Then light minima and maxima for aligned polarizers
occur when:

√ n is odd minima
(4) E/Em = n
n is even maxima,
where n is the sequence number of the minima and maxima
of the light intensity obtained by the array photodetector. In
figure 4, the black curve shows the normalized light intensity
(I/I0) at a certain position. It can be found the light intensity
did not decrease to the bottom, which means n  =  0. Thus,
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106
Figure 4.  Diagram of output light intensity at one of the positions
obtained from LAPD and the corresponding electric field.
the corresponding electric field at the position can be calcu-
lated from:
    12

E = Em π2 arccos (I/I0 ) (I decreases)
 1
 
 E = Em π arcsin (I/I0 ) 2 (I increases),
2
(5)
which is shown as the red curve in figure 4. With the electric
field at all the positions calculated by the same method, the
electric field distribution within the gap can be obtained.
In the case of parallel-plate electrodes, the direction of elec-
tric field is constant. With volume space charge in a di­electric
of permittivity ε , Gauss’ law in one spatial dimension can be
expressed as:
 = ρ → ∇ · E = ρ/ε,
∇·D
(6)
where ρ is the space charge density and D is the electric dis-
placement. Thus, the space charge density ρ(x) on the x axis
can be obtained with the calculated electric field distribution
by:
(7)
ρ(x) = ε0 εr (dE/dx)
where ε0 and εr are the vacuum permittivity and relative
permit­tivity, respectively.
3.  Experimental results and discussion
3.1.  Impulse breakdown test results
The results of impulse breakdown test with nanofluid of dif-
ferent concentrations are shown in in figure  5, in which the
histogram presents the breakdown voltage results, and the line
chart shows the improvement degrees of breakdown voltage
after the transformer oil is modified. The results demonstrate
that, with Al2O3 nanoparticles added, the breakdown voltage
of nano-modified transformer oil is higher than before modi-
fication obviously, and the degree of enhancement is depen-
dent on the concentration of nanoparticle. It is clear from the
figure that the breakdown strength improves with the increase
of concentration in a certain range, which means there is an
optimum concentration for Al2O3 nanoparticles when the
4
Q Yang et al
Figure 5.  Impulse breakdown test results for pure transformer
oil and Al2O3 nano-modified transformer oil with different
concentrations.
Table 1.  Impulse breakdown test results of pure and nano-modified
oil with different electrode materials under both polarities.
Electrode Ubr of pure Ubr of nanofluid
materials Polarity oil (kV) with 10 mg l−1 (kV)
Brass ± 31.7/32.1 36.9/37.3
Stainless steel ± 26.5/27.4 32.3/31.5
Aluminum ± 21.8/22.9 28.8/29.4
breakdown voltage reaches the maximum. Over the max-
imum, the breakdown voltage is decreased with the increased
concentration.
On the other hand, when it comes to the difference of elec-
trode materials, it can be found that no matter what the con-
centration is, the breakdown voltage remains the highest with
the brass electrodes, followed by that with stainless steel elec-
trodes and then the aluminum electrodes. This fact indicates
that the electrode material is the dominant factor influencing
the breakdown characteristics of transformer oil. However,
there exist particle concentration-dependent differences in
the enhancement degrees of breakdown voltage with different
electrode materials, as the line chart shows in figure  5. The
improvement degrees of breakdown voltage with these elec-
trodes are in decreasing order of aluminum, brass and stainless
steel until the optimum nanoparticle concentration after which
the breakdown voltage enhancement rate with brass electrode
drops the fastest, which is different from the order of break-
down voltage with these electrodes. Thus, Al2O3 nanoparticles
have different effect mechanism on the insulating properties
of transformer oil with different electrode materials.
In addition, the experimental result under pulses of both
polarities is shown in table 1. It is obvious that the difference
in Ubr under two opposite polarities remains very small with
each pair of parallel plate electrodes, whose maximum value
reaches 4.8% when the electrode material is aluminum. Since
the error less than 5% is considered to be the normal test error
during HV experiments and the difference of Ubr caused by
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106
Figure 6.  Variation of electric field distribution with time in pure ((a)–(c)) and nano-modified ((d)–(f)) oil with different electrode
materials: (a), (d) brass, (b), (e) stainless steel, (c), (f) aluminum.
the polarity effect in non-homogeneous electric fields is very
significant, it can be verified that there is no polarity effect
exists in the parallel plate electrodes.
3.2.  Electric field and space charge distribution
Figure 6 shows the electric field distribution between the
parallel-plate electrodes calculated from the light intensity,
obtained by array photodetector, based on equation (5) in the
pure and nano-modified transformer oil with the three elec-
trodes, respectively. First of all, by longitudinal comparison, it
is clear that the electric field values become more gathered in
the nanofluid, indicating that the electric field distortion caused
by the generation of the volume space charge is ameliorated
with nanoparticles added. By comparing different electrode
materials in the pure transformer oil, we can find that the dis-
persion of electric field values is the most uniform between
brass electrodes, while the electric field with aluminum is
dispersed earliest and most notably. This clear difference
implies that the electric field is distorted, which is affected by
the space charge injected quantities and injection pattern from
electrodes. The electric field distribution across the gap can
be obtained by the appropriate curve fitting from the detected
eight electric field values at a given time. The relative error
increases as the HV duration time increases and the relative
error can be controlled at a low level (under 5%) within 3 ms
[22], so we chose 250 µs, 500 µs, 1000 µs, 1500 µs and 2000
µs as the fitting time points to obtain the fitting electrode field
distribution between different pairs of electrodes in pure and
modified oil, as shown in figure 7, in which the dashed lines
indicate the theoretical uniform fields of V/l0 (V is the instan-
taneous voltage and l0 is the electrode spacing) in the case of
5
Q Yang et al
no space charge at the different positions). It is clear from the
figures that the electric field between electrodes is distorted by
the injected charge from electrodes, and becomes more uni-
form after transformer oil is modified, which can be proved
by the electric field distortion rates of both samples with alu-
minum electrodes for instance. The distortion rates are listed
in table 2 at different moments, defined as follows:
D = (Emax − Eavg )/Eavg × 100%
(8)
where Emax is the maximum electric field value, and Eavg is the
average electric field value between the electrodes. The results
imply that nanoparticles are beneficial to improve the unifor-
mity of electric field across the gap and improve the break-
down voltage as a result. On the other hand, comparing the
electric field distribution under the three different electrodes
in pure oil, it is obvious that the electric field with different
electrode materials at the same time is significantly different:
for brass electrode, the electric field decreases significantly
in the vicinity of both electrodes; for stainless steel electrode,
the electric field becomes higher than the theoretical field near
cathode while it is lower in the vicinity of anode electrode; in
contrast, the electric field adjacent to the cathode of aluminum
electrode is decreased enormously and increased near anode
electrode. This difference can be explained by the effect of
space charge. As homo-charge injected from the electrode can
lower the electric field magnitude, it indicates that there are
differences in charge injection pattern of different electrode
materials, which also influence the electric field distortion
within the gap, as shown in table 3. We can find that, in most
cases, the distortion of aluminum is the highest, followed
by stainless steel and brass in descending order, which is in
agreement with the order of breakdown test.
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106 Q Yang et al

Figure 7.  Electric field distribution across the anode–cathode gap for different electrode materials in pure ((a)–(c)) and nano-modified
((d)–(f)) oil: (a), (d) brass, (b), (e) stainless steel, (c), (f) aluminum.

Table 2.  Electric field distortion rate in pure and nano-modified Table 3.  Electric field distortion rate in in pure transformer oil with
transformer oil with aluminum electrodes. different electrode materials.
Time Distortion rate Distortion rate after Time Distortion Distortion rate Distortion rate
(µs) in pure oil (%) modification (%) (µs) rate brass (%) stainless steel (%) aluminum (%)
250 1.20 1.11 250 1.41 1.20 1.20
500 2.90 1.03 500 2.57 2.94 2.90
1000 7.97 7.31 1000 6.48 6.95 7.97
1500 19.33 18.05 1500 12.56 12.32 19.33
2000 41.02 32.12 2000 18.42 22.99 41.02

Figure 8 demonstrates space charge density distribution
across the gap between these three pairs of plate electrodes
in pure and modified oil respectively, which were calculated
on the basis of equation (7). It is clear that the space charge
between brass electrodes presents a bipolar homo-charge
injection. While the positive charge injected from the anode of
aluminum is much less than the negative charge injected from
the cathode, hence the charge injection pattern of aluminum is
considered to be unipolar negative charge injection. Similarly,
the charge injection pattern is unipolar positive charge injec-
tion for stainless steel since the negative charge injected from
the cathode of stainless steel can be negligible compared to
the positive charge injected from the anode. In addition, the
quantities of injected charges are also different for different
electrode materials. At 2000 µs in pure oil, the negative charge
density between aluminum electrodes reaches the maximum
of  −0.28 C m−3 at a distance of 0.2 mm from the cathode elec-
trode, while the positive charge density between stainless steel
electrodes reaches 0.18 C m−3 at the position 0.1 mm away
from the anode electrode. As for brass electrode, the densities
of homo-charge near both electrodes are up to  −0.177 C m−3
and 0.167 C m−3, respectively.
What is more, comparing the space charge density between
these three pairs of electrodes in pure and modified oil, the
volume space charge densities in the bulk of the dielectric
across the gap are declined in modified oil, implying that
the nanoparticles can reduce the space charge density as a
result of capturing free charges. However, the Al2O3 nano-
particle’s ability of shielding negative and positive charge
is different. Table 4 lists the reduction rates of negative and
positive charge densities in pure transformer oil and nanofluid
respectively. Due to the unipolar charge injection pattern of
aluminum and stainless steel electrodes, the reduction rates
near the non-charge injecting electrode of these two electrode
materials are not considered. The data imply that the negative
charges impeded by nanoparticles are relatively more than the
impeded positive charges, which leads to different effect on
the electric field distribution between different electrodes and
thus the different improvement degrees of breakdown voltage
in nano-modified transformer oil.

6
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106 Q Yang et al

Figure 8.  Space charge distribution across the gap between electrodes in pure (a)–(c) and nano-modified (d)–(f) oil: (a), (d) brass, (b), (e)
stainless steel, (c), (f) aluminum.

Table 4.  Reduction rates of the maximum densities of negative and

positive charge between different electrodes.
Charge densities Charge densities
Electrode in pure oil in nanofluid Reduction
materials (C m−3) (C m−3) rate
Brass −0.18 −0.11 38.9%
0.17 0.15 11.7%
Stainless −0.05 −0.06 −
Steel 0.18 0.15 16.7%
aluminum −0.28 −0.17 39.3%
0.06 0.03 −

3.3.  Theory analysis and discussion of breakdown theory

The experiment results show a large difference in the break-
down voltage of transformer oil with different electrode mat­
erials, regardless the concentration of nanoparticles, due to the
charge injection pattern and ability of metal electrode. For a
bipolar homo-charge injection from the brass electrode, the
electric field decreases at each electrode, rising to a maximum
value higher than the actual value somewhere in the center
of the gap. As for unipolar homo-charge injection, like alu-
minum and stainless steel, the electric field is thus decreased
at the charge injecting electrode but is increased at the non-
charge injecting electrode due to the reduction and superposi-
tion of spatial electric field, which highly distorts the applied
electric field. Also, it is found that breakdown strength is gen-
erally higher with bipolar injection with the decrease in elec-
tric field at both electrodes due to the space charge shielding.
Although the electric field is increased in the center of the gap,
breakdown does not occur since electrical breakdown usually
initiates at the electrode-dielectric interfaces. In contrast, the
Figure 9.  The diagram of the shielding effect of nanoparticles on
space charges.
unipolar injection increases the electric filed at the non-charge
injecting electrode, leading to the accelerated breakdown
process.
The charge injection ability is related to the potential bar-
rier on the metal surface. In cathode, the effective barrier
for electrons leaving the surface of metal is caused by the
work function of electrode material and properties of liquid
di­electric, that is, the potential barrier is equal to e(φ − χ),
where eφ is the work function value of metal and eχ is the elec-
tron affinity of the liquid [23]. The work function is related to
the metal material and surface topology. Considering that our
electrodes have been polished in the experiments, the surface
conditions should be the same. When an instantaneous high
voltage is applied, the barrier on the metal-liquid interface
is reduced in height, which leads to a significant possibility

7
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106
of electrons crossing the barrier. In pure oil, with the same
liquid conditions, the electrons injection quantities from the
cathode is dependent on the work function of the electrode
materials. When the work function of electrode is higher, the
barrier equivalent to e(φ − χ) increases and the electrons get
more difficult appearing near the cathode in result. Therefore,
with the lowest work function of 4.2 eV, the cathode of alu-
minum electrode injects the highest amount of electrons, fol-
lowed by the brass and stainless steel, both of whom are alloys
and the work function of the latter is higher than that of the
former. The charge injection mechanism for the anode case
is different. It shows the charge injection in a double layer
at the metal-liquid interface [24]. In transformer oil, the sur-
face of the metal electrode will absorb kinds of ions from the
solution and get charged. Due to the electrical neutrality, the
electrode is bound to attract other specific ion, which lead to
the double layer formation at the metal-liquid interface. Thus,
with applied voltage the charge collection or the charge injec-
tion process at the metal-liquid interface into the liquid will
occur. In a word, the breakdown strength of transformer oil
with different electrode materials is dependent on the charge
injection pattern and ability from electrodes. Therefore, the
breakdown voltage with brass electrode is the highest due to
the bipolar homo-charge injection. The aluminum and stain-
less steel electrodes are both unipolar homo-charge injection,
while the charge injection quantity of aluminum is more than
that of stainless steel, which leads to a more serious electric
field distortion and higher electric field value at the non-charge
injecting electrode, so that the breakdown strength with alu-
minum is lower than that of stainless steel.
On the other hand, in nano-modified transformer oil, the
breakdown strength is determined by the combined effect
mechanism of electrode material and nanoparticles. Many
researchers believe that when the nanofluids are exposed to
external electric field, the special interfacial characteristics
between transformer oil and nanoparticles play a crucial role
in space charge transportation during breakdown process in
nanofluids [25]. In the electric field, the interface of nano-
particles suspended in liquid dielectrics will form the surface
charge, which changes the electric field around the nano-
particles and adsorbs the charge carriers passing them, such
as electrons, leading to the formation of the potential well.
Thus, the nanoparticles can change the space charge distribu-
tion in the gap by charge trapping, which affects the distribu-
tion of the electric field in the dielectric and finally improves
the breakdown voltage. When only the permittivity and con-
ductivity of nanoparticles itself are considered to distort the
electric field, the nanoparticles would distort the electric field
as the case of impurities added, and breakdown voltage of
dielectric should be decreased. On the contrary, according to
the impulse breakdown test results, the breakdown voltage is
increased at a certain concentration of nanoparticles, which
is considered to be caused by the added nanoparticles cap-
turing electrons effectively and suppressing the process of
streamer development. For the nonconductive nanoparticle
Al2O3, the polarization of dielectric nanoparticles caused by
the polarization charges under the influence of external elec-
tric field will produce potential well, which converts the fast
8
Q Yang et al
moving electrons to slow negatively charged nanoparticles.
Moreover, because the mobility of electrons is much higher
than positive charge, the shielding effect of nanoparticles on
electrons is greater than that of positive charges. When elec-
trons are injected into liquid at the metal-liquid interface, they
are captured by nanoparticles rapidly and translated into the
negatively charged nanoparticles, stranded near the electrode
surface. This result in the induced potential barrier eVs due
to negative space charge built up adjacent to metal surface,
which makes the effective barrier for cathode increase to
e(φ − χ) + eVs [23], as shown in figure 9. Thus, the charge
injection is thwarted from the cathode. Moreover, it is analo-
gous with the case of anode. The positive charge hindered by
nanoparticles remains in the vicinity of anode, which alters the
potential from the applied field resulting in a higher effective
barrier and the charge injection is impeded too. Furthermore,
the shielding effect of nanoparticles on space charge play dif-
ferent roles in the electric field distribution and the breakdown
process with different electrode materials thanks to their dif-
ferent charge injection patterns. Due to the limitation of the
precision of photodetector, we cannot measure the actual elec-
tric field at the metal-liquid interface. Therefore, the value of
electric field can be analyzed by theoretical calculation. With
volume space charge in a dielectric with permittivity ε , the
electric field distribution can be calculated by the Gauss’s law
in one spatial dimension [26]:
 x
ρ(x ) 
(9) E(x) = dx + E0
0 ε
where E0 is the integration constant equal to the electrical field
at x  =  0. The value of E0 is determined by requiring the elec-
tric field to have average value of V/l0 , which is the theoretical
value of uniform electric field defined above:
 l0  l0  x
ρ(x ) 
(10) Edx = E0 l0 + dx dx = V
0 0 0 ε
so that:
 l0  x ρ(x ) 
V dx 0 ε dx
E0 = − 0
(11) .
l0 l0
Since the space charge density is decreased across the gap
as a whole with the nanoparticles added, the electric field E0 at
cathode is higher than that in pure oil in the case of brass elec-
trodes with bipolar homo-charge injection. Despite the fact
that the initiative breakdown streamer is more likely to occur
at the electrode-dielectric interfaces with increased electric
field in nano-modified oil, the development of streamer is hin-
dered by the electron absorption on the surface of nanoparti-
cles and cannot get through the entire channel. Moreover, the
velocity, v , of space charge is proportional to the electric field,
v = µE , where µ is the charge mobility. Thus, the velocity
of space charge is reduced with the decreased electric field
across the gap in nano-modified oil, depressing the streamer
development rate and improving the breakdown strength of
transformer oil in result. On the other hand, for the case of alu-
minum and stainless steel, both of which are unipolar homo-
charge injection, the nanoparticles added impede the charge
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 (2017) 465106
injection from electrode, reducing the space charge density
across the gap, so that the electric filed at the non-charge
injecting electrode is decreased compared to pure oil and the
breakdown strength is improved. As a result of the electrons
shielded by nanoparticles being greater than positive charge,
the enhancement degree of breakdown voltage with aluminum
is always the highest since its large amount of unipolar nega-
tive charge injection while the enhancement degree of stain-
less steel is the lowest because of its unipolar positive charge
injection.
However, with the increase of nanoparticle concentration,
there is a critical value after which the nanoparticles start to
agglomerate, which brings about a negative influence on the
improvement of breakdown strength. In addition, for brass
electrode, with more electrons trapped near the cathode, the
charge injection from cathode will decline sharply. This ulti-
mately leads to a tendency of unipolar charge injection with
higher distortion of electric field, so that the enhancement
degree of breakdown strength with brass electrode drops
markedly after the critical value of concentration. On the
contrary, the slow negatively charged particles stranded near
the cathode may show a possibility of bipolar charge injec-
tion with stainless steel electrode, slowing the reduction of
enhancement rate in result.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, three different electrode materials were selected
and Al2O3 nano-modified transformer oil was prepared
with three different concentrations. The impulse breakdown
strength of pure transformer oil and prepared nanofluids with
three pairs of similar-material plate electrodes was tested,
and the result was explained by the space charge measure-
ments in pure and nano-modified transformer oil using the
Kerr electro-optic system. The conclusions obtained from this
study are as follows:
(1) The breakdown strength of transformer oil with brass
electrode is the highest, followed by stainless steel and
finally the aluminum, which is determined by the charge
injection pattern and ability of metal electrode. The space
charge injection presents a bipolar homo-charge injec-
tion between brass electrodes, a unipolar positive charge
injection for stainless steel and a unipolar negative charge
injection for aluminum.
(2) The breakdown strength is generally higher with bipolar
homo-charge injection than unipolar charge injection due
to the lower electric field at electrode-liquid interface
where the streamer usually initiates and a more uniform
electric field across the gap.
(3) The nanoparticle can improve the breakdown strength by
capturing space charge and hindering the development
of streamer until a critical value after which the nano-
particles start to agglomerate and the breakdown voltage
tends to decrease. Also, the Al2O3 nanoparticle’s ability
of shielding negative charge is better than positive charge.
(4) Nanoparticles have different effect mechanism on the
breakdown process with different electrode materials,
9
Q Yang et al
which is attributed to the charge injection pattern and
quantity of electrode and the space charge shielding
ability of nanoparticle. Also, this finally leads to the
difference of enhancement degree of breakdown voltage
with different electrode materials.
(5) In the streamer breakdown theory, there are two condi-
tions for streamer developing to breakdown, one is the
initiate electric field at electrode-liquid interface, the
other is the development channel through the gap. The
electrode material has a dominant effect on the electric
field at the electrode-liquid interface, while the nano-
particles have an adjustment in the electric field near the
electrodes and play an important role in the development
of streamer.
Acknowledgments
We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(grant number 51277190), the Fund for Innovative Research
Groups of China (grant number 51321063), and the Outstand-
ing Young Teacher Plan of Chongqing for supporting this
research.
ORCID iDs
Qing Yang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8545-6335
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