Water as a Digression Relative to the Dielectric Response in the Frequency Domain for Polymer Composites

Abstract

The presence of water in insulating solids is known to affect the dielectric properties. Although relaxation processes evolved with the excitation frequency and temperature, further characteristics unfold when contaminant with a high dielectric constant, such as water is involved. When the material consists of a microcomposite, and especially in the advent of incorporation of nanofillers, it is speculated that water molecules may intervene in several different manners. In order to investigate further the potential digression caused by water, dielectric spectroscopy was used on prepared composite specimen. Different types of epoxy microcomposites exhibiting a high content of quartz, i.e. 60% wt., were prepared. The effects due to the variation of the water content and presence of nanostructures (nanoclay) on the dielectric response will be discussed. With a weight intake of 0.2% of water, the capacity of the epoxy microcomposite exhibits a slight increase (2%) at lower frequencies and losses are found to increase while a shift towards higher frequencies occurs.