Composites with nanosilica

There are only a few materials that are promising composites. For decades high-voltage electrical insulation technology used ternary insulation systems; usually based on modified epoxy resins and reconstructed mica. Adding additional components into existing systems, it is possible to influence their properties. However, the disadvantage is an inhomogeneous composite structure that emerges from the very quality of these materials. Inhomogeneous structure material causes defects during operation that increase material and this can limit the life of the entire device. The key to solving this problem is to reduce the dimensions of the individual components, in this case the filler. This paper deals with the study of electrical insulation properties of nanocomposites based on epoxy resin filled with hydrophobic and hydrophilic silica. Nanocomposities were created by using a dissolution method, in which a nanofiller was applied to the melted matrix DGEBA. We made a special mould to cure the samples. To determine the electrical insulating properties the following characteristics were measured: polarization index, volume resistivity, dissipation factor and dielectric strength. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that hydrophobic silica combined with water with little or no hydrogen bonds will have better electrical properties than hydrophobic silica on its own. The results show that the best results were achieved with 1% hydrophobic silica.