The Investigation of the Synthesis Cooking Oil As A New Power Transformer Oil

Abstract

Background: The mineral oil has been widely used in a power transformer for the purpose of insulation and suppression of corona and arcing. But due to its extremely low flashpoint, this can also cause an explosion in the case of a fire and the mineral oil has been found to be non-biodegradable. In this research, an alternative of mineral oil is proposed, which is the usage of used cooking oil which will undergo chemical modification via transesterification in order to achieve its expected properties which fits into the requirements of the power transformer according to the IEEE standard of IEEE C57.147 Methods: the synthesis of oil process will begin by the selection of the most suitable vegetable oil, in this case the palm oil in which, the water content and acidity were taken into consideration. The oil will then undergo transesterification process for the removal of free fatty acids and water content, before being tested for its acidity, water content and the breakdown down voltage in the high voltage lab to evaluate the electrical properties of the oil. Results: The results obtained during testing is that the breakdown voltage and water content is 6 kV and 125 ppm and the acidity 0.13 mg KOH/g. Conclusion: It is expected that the potential synthesized oil which has undergone transesterification process and the removal of all water content and free fatty acids in the oil, can be able to replicate the values replace the mineral oil in a power transformer despite having a higher acidity than the mineral oil.