Thermal Aging Effects on the Electrical Breakdown Voltage of TiO and MWCNT Nanofluids Based on POME

In this work, the aging behavior of liquid insulation in transformers using chemically modified refined, bleached, and deodorized palm oil (RBDPO) olein is investigated. The transesterification process is used to modify RBDPO olein to produce palm oil methyl ester (POME), which is used as a base fluid for nanofluid (NF) preparation. The performance of POME with the dispersion of semiconducting titanium oxide (TiO2) and conducting multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) nanoparticles (NPs) at different concentrations on the ac breakdown voltage (ac BDV) as insulation in transformers is evaluated for their aging behavior. The accelerated aging was conducted under sealed conditions at a temperature of 130°C for 1000 h. The results show that incorporating TiO2 and MWCNT NPs into POME did not have an adverse effect on the BDV, regardless of the doping concentrations. Notably, POME-based TiO2 NFs exhibited the highest ac BDV after thermal aging, specifically at a concentration of 0.05-g/L. Anderson–Darling (AD) goodness-of-fit statistics were performed on the experimental data to verify their agreement with the normal and Weibull distributions.