Voltage stabilizers for improving the electrical treeing resistance of XLPE

Voltage stabilizers have only been used as an electrical tree retardant in commercial polyolefin high voltage cables to a very small extent. A reason for this could be their lack of solubility and in many cases limited efficiency. The low solubility has led to migration of the voltage stabilizers from the bulk of the material to evaporate on the surface. However, in this article it will be shown that it is possible to incorporate small amounts of voltage stabilizers to increase the resistance to electrical treeing of polyethylene significant and that the stabilizers added to the polymeric matrix will not migrate in any large extent. These properties are crucial to ensure the long term properties of the insulation system. The efficiency of the best new voltage stabilizer presented in this paper will exceed the ones previously published significantly.