Enhance the Dielectric Constant of Low-density Polyethylene (LDPE) using Nanofiller for Electrical Applications /

Abstract

It is crucial for flexible capacitive energy storage applications to produce polymer nanocomposites with high dielectric properties and the addition of inorganic nanofillers can significantly increase the dielectric constant of dielectric polymers. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is a polymer with excellent dielectric properties and is extensively used in electrical equipment. Various commercially available nanofillers have been employed for this purpose, but the objective of current research is to use waste-derived material known as biomass fly ash (BFA) as a nanofiller to improve the dielectric constant of LDPE because it possesses a versatile composition with various metal oxides makes it an attractive nanofiller.. The BFA-LDPE sheets were made using a conventional solvent mixing and subsequent hot-pressing procedure with a range of BFA loadings, and the impact of different loadings was carefully examined. Synthesized composites are thoroughly investigated and characterized by using different characterization techniques including XRD, SEM, FTIR, and TGA to study the crystallographic properties, morphology, chemical composition, and thermal stability. . Moreover, the dielectric constant is also studied and among all the nanocomposites, 4% BFA-LDPE has shown the maximum dielectric constant having value of 11.58 with respect to untreated LDPE having an 8.33 dielectric constant due to the synergistic effect of different inorganic metal oxides (SiO2, MgO and Fe2O3) present in BFA. Overall, the results indicated a significant improvement, proving that the waste derived BFA can be used as influential nanofiller in the LDPE based composite and 4% BFA-LDPE composite may be employed for electrical insulating applications in future studies.