Influence of Water Contaminants on the Breakdown Voltage and Leakage Current of Palm Oil under Inhomogeneous Electric Field

The impurity because of water presence in a palm oil under an inhomogeneous electric field has been investigated in this paper. The inhomogeneous field condition has been produced during the experiment using an arrangement of needle-plate electrodes with three different sharpness angles, namely 0°, 45°, dan 60°. An AC high voltage has been taken as the testing voltage while the gap between the needle and the plate electrodes used was 5 mm. Two levels of impurity in the palm oil have been considered, which were 2000ppm and 4000ppm. The experiment results showed that in a new and uncontaminated palm oil it was found that the more pointed the needle electrode was, the smaller would be the leakage current level. It implied that less uniform the electric field intensity between the electrodes, the smaller would be the leakage current level. The experiment results also showed that the water content in the palm oil decreased the breakdown voltage level significantly, and the more pointed needle electrode caused a decrease in the level of breakdown voltage of palm oil with water contaminants. It has also been observed during the experiments that the water droplets in the electric field were broken apart into smaller water droplets.