Effect of Aspect ratio and water contamination on the electric properties of nanostructured insulating materials

Organically-modified nanofiller clays can have significantly different aspect ratios as well as accumulate a relatively large amount of water in the composite bulk due to the contribution of the filler itself and the interaction between filler and polymer matrix. This paper investigates the effect of water absorption in a nanostructured thermoplastic polymer, namely ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA), on electrical property modifications considering the contribution of aspect ratio. The change of electrical properties (particularly space charge accumulation, electric strength, bulk conductivity and permittivity/losses) is studied as a function of water content absorbed by nanofillers having diffe…