A New Analytical Method for the Determination of the Water Content of Transformer Oils

A new analytical method is presented for the determination of the water content of transformer oil. The technique is based on the mass spectrometric determination of HD (m/e= 3) formed in the reaction of water and LiA1D4. The lower limit of detection was found to be 5 ppm water. The standard deviation characteristic to reproducibility was equal to 1.6 ppm, while the error of the mean value corresponding to 95 percent confidence level was found to be ±2.2 ppm inthe 20 ppm water range.