Study on the Compatibility of Chloroprene Rubber and Environment-friendly Insulating Gas C5F10O

As an environmentally friendly insulation medium with the potential to replace SF
6
, research on C
5
F
10
O has been extensive conducted in recent years. Existing studies have confirmed that C
5
F
10
O mixtures has enough insulation strength to be used as the insulating gas for some gas insulated switchgear (GIS). However, the environmentally friendly GIE developed up to now still uses the same sealing materials as $\mathbf{S F}_{6}$ GIS. Whether these materials are compatible with C
5
F
10
O in the long term is still unknown, which limits the practical application of C
5
F
10
O in the future. Therefore, in this paper, the compatibility between C
5
F
10
O and chloroprene rubber, a commonly used sealing material in SF 6 GIE is studied through thermal accelerated aging method. The compression modulus was selected to evaluate the mechanical properties of CR during the four-week experiment. In addition, the changes in the the rubber surface under different aging conditions were analyzed by energy dispersive spectrometer, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results show that the compression modulus of CR treated in $\mathrm{C}_{5}\mathrm{~F}_{10}\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{N}_{2}$ is significantly lower than that of CR treated in N
2
. Moreover, after accelerated thermal aging, F elements were found on the aged rubber surface in the form of C-F bonds and metal fluorides, which indicates that C
5
F
10
O will react with CR in long-term coexistence. The incompatibility between C
5
F
10
O and CR needs to be considered in the design and manufacturing of C
5
F
10
O gas insulated electrical equipment.