TITLE:
Investigation of Critical Characteristics of Mineral Oil with Activated Carbon
AUTHORS:
M. Vanitha, N. Narmadhai, M. Karthik
KEYWORDS:
Activated Carbon, Mineral Oil, Power Transformer, Breakdown Voltage, Viscosity
JOURNAL NAME:
Circuits and Systems,
Vol.7 No.9,
July
27,
2016
ABSTRACT: Fluid insulating medium is
used for electrical insulation and provides a cooling medium in high voltage
power transformers. Due to this reason, petroleum based mineral oil
(transformer oil) is mostly used for a number of years which holds the benefit
of cost effectiveness and good flow rate. This benefit leads to more
requirements of oil that may cause oil scarcity in the near future. In order to
overcome the scarcity in forthcoming years many research works focus on
identifying the best approach for regeneration of oils. In this paper,
activated carbon obtained from the agricultural waste is used which acts as the
absorbent of impurities. Use of activated carbon is a perfect approach for
regeneration of oils. Critical characteristics such as breakdown voltage, flash
point, fire point and viscosity are measured for the pure and aged mineral oil
with and without adding activated carbon. By this approach it is found that the
activated carbon with used oil 1, used oil 2 and fresh oil provides continuous
improvement of properties as per IEC (International Electrotechnical
Commission) and ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standards
which will reduce the oil consumption and cost. From the analysis, it reveals
that mineral oil with activated carbon has better properties and the use of
activated carbon is the best practice of regeneration of oils.