Self-assembled montmorillonite 2D nanoclay spray coating with superior wet-electric resistance for ultrahigh-voltage-transmission
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: The growth of global electricity demands significant increase in transmission capacity. Whereas adding new high-voltage lines faces challenges of the “Right of Way”, increasing the voltage of existing transmission lines represents an economical and efficient option. This posts, however, risks to already tensioned transmission-line with intense discharge erosion which leads to rapid deteriorations of composite insulators and catastrophic dropping of the lines, especially under wet conditions. We report a self-assembled montmorillonite/polyvinyl butyral 2-D nanocoating that can be readily applied as a facile spray coating to impart superior discharge resistance to epoxy based fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) composite insulators. Accelerated high voltage discharge tests under also high humidity suggest while uncoated epoxy fails at ~600 h with erosion depth up to 400 µm, epoxy sample with a thin layer of 2-D nanoclay coating can survive 1560 hours without noticeable surface erosion. This remarkable wet-electric discharge resistance is attributed to the excellent blocking performance of the highly ordered 2-D assembly coating. In addition, the anisotropic structure of our 2-D nanocoating imparts favorable in-plane conduction properties, thus further dissipating charges and mitigating intensified discharge activities concentrated in triple junctions. This facile and scalable spray coating approach reveals a promising solution of high-voltage engineering for ultrahigh-voltage-transmission.
Institutions: University of Connecticut, Tsinghua University
Language: English
Subfield: Materials Chemistry
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4413123359