Different ways to improve natural ester oils

Abstract

The issue of natural esters as a substitution for mineral oils is more complicated than it seems. The first impulse for this substitution rose up as a demand for environment-friendly transformer oil. The case of fault of the transformer with mineral oil represents severe damage to the surrounding area. This would be minimized with the usage of biodegradable natural ester oil. The category of natural esters offers a wide range of possibilities. These oils have an advantage of local manufacturing by the available local oil plant. In our area it is sunflower and rapeseed oil. Research presented in this article covers various areas concerning the development process of new biodegradable liquid usable in distribution transformers. This includes the process of choosing the base oil, testing of operation conditions of its properties, finding ways to improve imperfect properties through additives like antioxidants and possible benefits of the addition of nanoparticles. Various problems in this area were tackled and detailed results (mostly of electrical but also chemical parameters) are presented with basis on the chemical composition of tested materials.