Abstract
Cellulosic insulating paper is the component part of the insulation in power transformers. Under thermal stress inside the transformer, cellulosic insulating paper degrades to generate formic acid that will dissolve in insulating oil. In addition, the generation of formic acid further accelerates the aging process of insulating paper. This study took cellulose molecule with DP of 2 that was composed of D-glucose as the research object, the ReaxFF reaction force field was used to simulate the high temperature thermal aging process of cellulose. This study obtained the main reaction pathways of cellulose pyrolysis to generate formic acid. During the pyrolysis process, the number of formic acid molecules presented short-term fluctuations, which was the phenomenon of disappearance and regeneration of formic acid molecules. The combined element tracing method obtained three pathways of cellulose pyrolysis to generate formic acid: 1) The ether group oxygen atom O5(O'5) and C1(C'1) form a carbonyl group to generate formic acid. 2) Dehydrogenation of the primary alcohol hydroxyl group and the attached C atom form a carbonyl group to generate formic acid. 3) Dehydrogenation of the secondary alcohol hydroxyl group and the attached C atom form a carbonyl group to generate formic acid. Statistics found that the generation of formic acid molecules mainly come from the first pathway. The pre-exponential factor and activation energy of the calculated pyrolysis model were consistent with the experimental results. This study designed the accelerated thermal aging experiment of oil-paper insulation. The silanization derivatization method was used to detect the formic acid generated by the aging of insulating paper, which further verified the feasibility of formic acid as an index for evaluating the aging of cellulosic insulating paper.
Effect of Thermal Aging on the Properties of Insulating Paper