Investigations on critical properties of blended edible natural esters based insulating oil

Present growing demand for renewable, environment friendly and biodegradable insulating liquids for high voltage applications lead to find the potential alternative to petroleum based mineral oil as insulating medium. In this paper, an attempt is made to find the alternative insulating fluid with better insulating characteristics and eco friendly nature. This work reports on the experimental investigations on the edible natural esters and their blended combinations. The investigations are carried out for finding the critical properties such as breakdown voltage, flash point, fire point and viscosity according to international standards. Olive oil, rice bran oil and soya bean oil based edible natural esters are taken for investigations in individual form and in blended combinations of them. Blended combinations are taken in the range from 0% to 100%. From the experiments, it is found that the edible natural esters have the potential to replace the traditional mineral oil. The edible natural esters and the blended combinations of the edible natural esters have the better properties than the mineral oil. Their eco friendly nature, biodegradability and better insulating properties of edible natural esters pave the way for new insulating medium for high voltage applications.