Between Orange and Lemon Juice

Wikipedia defines “Fear mongering (or scaremongering or scare tactics) [as] the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end. The feared object is sometimes exaggerated, …”

The “feared object” is Novinium’s patented acid catalyst. U.S. Patent 7,770,871 (together with its foreign equivalents) demonstrates the tremendous benefits of this leap forward in rejuvenation technology. This advance, patented on April 20, 2010, largely makes the previous generation of technology irrelevant. So naturally the tactic of fear mongering is utilized by the purveyors of the over two-decade-old approach. 

The purpose of this post is to explore whether one should be concerned about the patented acid catalyst in Novinium brand Ultrinium and Perficio fluids. To take a guided tour on the subject, click on the presentation link below. For best results …

1. click on the full screen icon in the lower right corner of the slide frame,

2. click the “Allow” button to accept full screen mode, and

3. click on the play icon in the lower left corner to start the presentation.

 Between orange and lemon juice  

The presentation transcript follows …

01: What danger lies between orange juice and lemon juice? {Advance}

02: To answer this pressing question we have to understand what alkaline and acid mean. In water, chemists use the “pH” scale to delineate alkalinity and acidity. Technically pH is the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration, but you don’t have to understand logarithms or chemistry to understand alkalinity and acidity, because we experience most of the range of the alkaline-acid scale in our everyday lives. {Advance}

03: Let’s start with the alkaline portion of the scale. Anything with a pH greater than 7 is alkaline. Near the top of the list is liquid drain cleaner. If you get drain cleaner on your skin, wash it off immediately with copious water. While the word “acid” gets the rap for being dangerous, highly alkaline is just as bad as highly acidic. Moving down the scale, chlorine bleach is not nearly as irritating, but don’t leave bleach on your skin for too long … wash it off too. As we move down the pH scale the level of irritation becomes less and less. Soapy water left on your skin for a long time can be quite irritating too. In fact, our skin is acidic so all alkaline materials create some irritation over long enough time periods. {Advance}

04: Now consider acids. Human skin and black coffee share the same pH … about 5. We regularly drink tomato juice and orange juice at pH of 4 and 3 respectively. And we squeeze lemon juice into water or onto our fish, but for most people’s tastes, lemon juice is a bit too sour, or too acidic, to be drunk without some sugar added. In any case, these drinks don’t provide any problems to our bodies, because our stomach acid has a still lower pH. Let’s focus on that lemon juice for a moment longer … {Advance}

05: Did you know that over 6 million people die each year from lemon juice burns? … Just kidding … I was checking to see if you were engaged. The worst thing that can happen with lemon juice is a squirt to the eye. That can sting, but your eye will recover. {Advance}

06: Why does the word acid have such a bad rap? Is it the burning of skin from the acid in a lead-acid battery? Is it 30-weight-percent laboratory acid like hydrochloric acid with a pH of negative-one? {Advance}

07: Or is it alien blood, so acidic that it eats rapidly through metal floors on Hollywood movie sets? {Advance}

08: It might come as a surprise to some, but that is not really possible. A close examination of the Hollywood special effect demonstrates that the “metal” is really Styrofoam^® and the acid is really an organic solvent. You can try this at home with some Styrofoam and gasoline. Drip the gasoline from well above the Styrofoam to get the cool splatter effect. {Advance}

09: I am not entirely sure why acid is a scary word, but let’s examine the space between orange juice and lemon juice. {Advance}

10: Two fluids that occupy that space are Coca-Cola^® Classic – the Real Thing^®, and another real thing, Novinium brand Ultrinium™ and Perficio™ fluids. Make sure you don’t spill either on a metal floor … they eat right through it like alien blood! {Advance}

11: So what danger does fall between orange juice and lemon juice? Advance the view again to summarize the answer … {Advance} Maintain healthy skepticism of what you learn from Hollywood and from fear mongers.

Honesty – Best Policy

Dear ample amphibian-

A gentleman from UTILX says that while he worked for Dow Corning Corporation in the early 1990’s he and his colleagues tested the materials that Novinium uses today and that Dow Corning rejected their use because these materials were second-rate, that is they did not work as well as the PMDMS (or phenylmethyldimethoxysilane), the main ingredient of CableCURE^®/XL fluid.

What say you?

California Dreamer

Dear Dreamer-

There are three assertions being made by an Individual From Competition (IFC) who knows better:

Assertion 1: Dow Corning tested the materials that Novinium uses today,

Assertion 2: The performance of those materials was second-rate in comparison to the main component of CableCURE/XL, namely PMDMS, and

Assertion 3: Even with all the other process and catalyst improvements Novinium has made, Novinium’s fluid remains second-rate.

pieces of eight

by t. b. frog

you are not the first person, to whom this dream has been spun,

i was not even a glimmer in my father’s eye when this work was done;

somebody is indeed dreaming, but it is easy to set the record straight,

consider these pieces, there are eight.

Piece One: Assertion without proof

Let’s say that you had data which demonstrated your competitor’s product was inferior to your own. Wouldn’t you publish it? IFC, come clean … show us the data you purport to possess!

Piece Two: Testimony

To get the straight scoop I went to my colleague, Glen Bertini. Mr. Bertini directed the early work at Dow Corning (circa 1992). He is the guy who conceived of CableCURE/XL fluid, and he is a co-inventor of the materials that Novinium uses today. Mr. Bertini knows that all three of IFC’s assertions are not entirely forthright. The silane materials that Novinium uses today are listed unambiguously on the Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 material safety data sheets (MSDS). These materials are …

• tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane (+ isomer of same & 8-carbon alkoxy analog)

• cyanobutylmethyldimethoxysilane (and 8-carbon alkoxy analog)

Mr. Bertini provides a sworn and notarized declaration (link is nearby) asserting that neither of these materials were tested by Dow Corning or UTILX during the 22-year period from July 1980 to December 2001.

80-20120627_GJB_Declaration.pdf (281.40 kb)

Piece Three: Challenge

Mr. Bertini hereby challenges IFC to a public debate exploring the merits of these assertions. The debate will be recorded in its entirety and provided, unedited on YouTube for the entire world to see and hear. Novinium will bear all of the production costs and will travel to meet IFC at a venue of his choice – any time, anywhere.

Piece Four: Side-by-side taste test – Round I

IFC's employer had an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of its technology when NEETRAC, NEETRAC’s sponsoring circuit owners, and other NEETRAC-affiliated industry leaders invited UtilX to participate in a side-by-side laboratory experiment together with Novinium. UtilX helped craft an experimental protocol, but withdrew its participation when the experiment was to actually begin. That experiment is complete and included the only rejuvenation firm willing to share their post-injection results in a truly independent experiment – that would be Novinium. UtilX demurred, citing “business and commercial reasons.”

Piece Five: Side-by-side taste test – Round II

If UTILX now regrets that it did not participate in the NEETRAC side-by-side test, Novinium will grant it a Mulligan. Novinium will eagerly participate in a new experiment, which directly compares the post-injection performance of UTILX’s products against Novinium products. It’s not too late to end the debate, but you have to promise not to withdraw at the eleventh hour this time! Novinium will fund the experiment, which will be executed by an independent laboratory with a substantially similar protocol as was previously agreed by UTILX.

Piece Six:  Analogous materials are not second-rate

It should be clear to the critical reader that Novinium’s modern fluids were never tested by Dow Corning or UTILX, but what about the second claim – the claim that the untested materials were second rate? If the materials were never tested, the assertion seems a little silly, but there is another less-than-honest dimension to this second assertion. IFC is suggesting that phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) utilized in CableCURE/XL fluid and Novinium’s own Perficio™ 011 fluid is first-rate or has no peers. Let’s test that assertion against the following statement proffered by UTILX in its paper, “Failures in Silicone-treated German Cables Due to an Unusual Aluminum-Methanol Reaction,” published at the IEEE, PES, ICC in October 2001. To wit …

“In those experiments there was not a statistically significant difference between the performance of methoxy silanes and their ethoxy equivalents. For example, the screening experiments included phenylmethyldimethoxysilane, tolylmethyldimethoxysilane, dimethyldimethoxysilane, and vinylmethyldiethoxysilane, which all had very similar performance profiles. The ultimate choice of the alkoxy group was not driven by performance, but was rather driven by commercial availability.”

PMDMS was chosen because it was cheap and easy to come by! UTILX names several materials for which “there was not a statistically significant difference between the [dielectric] performance” from the PMDMS that IFC now suggest is the one-and-only first-rate performer. The careful reader with some background in chemistry will note a similarity between the named tolylmethyldimethoxysilane and Novinium patented (U.S. 7,658,808 & 8,101,034) tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane – different only in the two extra methylene units encompassed in the “ethyl.” The two materials are not identical, but they are analogous. The reported data contradict IFC’s second assertion. Novinium has done many experiments with its actual materials and these materials consistently outperform PMDMS. Check out my post of March 15, 2011 to learn how those two methylene units boost post-injection reliability of tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane using “Chain Entanglement.” But there is more, not only are there unidentified materials in the data published by Dow Corning and reproduced in the illustration nearby, but there are materials which are not disclosed at all. Some unidentified materials performed better than PMDMS. IFC should publish all of the results – even if those results do not support his contentions.

Piece Seven:  Devil in the Details

In the illustration nearby I provide a compilation of data from the two cited sources – both are Dow Corning/UTILX documents. These data are a subset of the data to which IFC is undoubtedly referring when he makes his assertions. As you can see from Mr. Bertini’s Declaration there is even more data, which if it were made public would cast an even darker shadow on the assertions of IFC. It’s interesting data for sure, but it does not support the notion that PMDMS is particularly special. There are a variety of other materials, which show statistically similar performance. But what is the ACBD of the y-axis? It’s the AC breakdown strength (50% probability) after 6 months of immersion in ambient temperature water and 2.5X rated voltage (20 kV). Is that test protocol a good predictor of performance after 20 years? After 40? Of course, not. To suggest so would be like declaring that the horse in first place at the first turn will win the derby. The testing to which IFC refers is a short-term screening experiment and cannot discriminate long-term performance.

Piece Eight:  Overlooking the catalyst

Not only was the experiment woefully short and not thermally accelerated, all of the silanes tested were catalyzed with 0.2%_w titanium(IV) isopropoxide (TIP). Novinium does not use TIP because it suffers from an unacceptably low catalytic efficiency. It’s about 39% inefficient. Novinium’s patented catalyst technology is 98% efficient. See my previous posts on the subject of catalytic efficiency at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I (January 3, 2011)

Catalytic Considerations – Component II (January 5, 2011)

Novinium’s master scientists have not tested every water reactive material shown in the illustration with our patented catalyst technology, but we have tested all the commercially important ones. Without exception, long-term performance, what I like to call persistence, is substantially improved by the application of Novinium’s U.S. Patent 7,700,871.

There is an old Madison Avenue adage, “If you don’t have anything to say – sing it!” Which of the following do you like the best for the IFC Corollary? (check all that apply)

ü  If you don’t have any facts – wing it!

ü  If the facts don’t support your position – obfuscate!

ü  If you won’t spend money on R&D, cite 20-year-old data out of context!

Finally, I have a selfish appeal directly to IFC, who is one of my most loyal readers. Don’t change your story one iota! The reason that so many circuit owners tell us of your tale, is that it isn’t credible. Send me your comments and I will publish them here unedited.

Credibility is transparency,

T. B. Frog

80-20120627_GJB_Declaration.pdf (281.40 kb)

Suitable for Treatment

Dear B.F.

We’ve taken some photographs of cable samples identified with off-line PD testing.  I was hoping to get your opinion of the cable and if injection would be able to address these issues.

·        On two samples, we found the XLP insulation was a greenish color.  We’ve never found cables discolored before and it had an odd odor.  Upon wafering and dying the sample, quite a few trees were found.

·        On three samples, we found spots where a hole was burned through the semi-con layer and dirt had gotten between the semi-con and insulation, causing some deep pitting.

I’ve attached some photos of the issues.  Neither of these cables has been treated, but can they? Let me know what you think.

Wishing you well,

Wisconsin

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dear Wisconsin-

First off – green is a lovely color and you should be proud of your sample’s hue. The green color proves that the insulation compound manufacturer included anti-oxidants in its formulation and is generally an indication of recent heat exposure. The sulfur-based anti-oxidants break into by-products as they do their job. Some of these by-products absorb red light, leaving a predominantly yellow to green hue. The insulation may by 4201 made by Union Carbide, now Dow Wire & Cable. Click here to check out a fact sheet put out by the Dow folks called:

Color Indicates Presence of Antioxidants in XLPE Insulation Compounds

With regard to the odor, I can’t answer definitively for two reasons. One, you did not send me a sample and two, frogs are not known for their olfactory prowess. I can, however, speculate. The sulfur-containing anti-oxidant by-products are called thiols or mercaptans and have strong garlic-like odor. I have a cat at my house with an exceptionally keen nose. If you send me a stinky sample I can ask her to identify the chemistry involved. I hope it does not smell like tuna fish — she might gnaw on it. See "rats" below.

With regard to the water trees, you will find those in every solid dielectric cable. Water trees are the predominant cause of solid dielectric cable failure. Fortunately, Novinium provides fluids that can reverse the damage caused by water trees and replace the anti-oxidants that have been consumed over decades of field aging.

·        Click here to learn how you can know that water trees are the predominant cause of cable failures.

·        Click here to learn how you can be confident that rejuvenation will reverse the damage caused by water trees.

·        Click here to learn how Novinium^®-brand Ultrinium™ fluid can replenish the anti-oxidants in aged cable.

Deep Pitting

I don’t know if the cable with the holes in it smelled like garlic, but the rodents that chewed on it must have liked the odor.  I doubt that the meal was satisfying. I am fond of rodents. An adult mouse fills my belly for the better part of a week, but I might have taken a pass on the gal that was chewing on your cable. Shreds of polyethylene in her belly would end up in mine and would undoubtedly upset my delicate digestion. I suspect the rat stopped chewing when she started to feel a tingling in her mouth – those were partial discharges. Persistence would have led to an untimely end. That’s how I know the rat was a female. A male rat would not have been smart enough to back off when he felt the tingles … in fact they probably would have only encouraged him more.

Here is a question for you, Wisconsin. How many cables had to be examined to find these rodent bites? If rodent damage is rampant in your service territory, off-line partial discharge testing might be a useful tool to find where the rats reside. It is true, that rejuvenation cannot address rodent damage, but how prevalent is this failure mode? For some insight on that question check out my three-part postings of January 2012 …

Failure Causes I, Failure Causes II, and Failure Causes III.

The Novinium masters of reliability have been involved in the injection of many millions of cable feet. Cables with water trees, with or without interesting color and odor, are handled easily and these represent the frog’s share of the root causes of cable failure. Add in component issues addressed by rejuvenation and a tiny minority of potential issues are left unaddressed. It is for this reason that more than 99.4% of all cable treated by Novinium enjoy failure-free reliability.

Never put anything in your mouth that can kill you,

T. B. F.

Real World I – High K

In my last post of 2011 one of my local fans, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the veracity of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and many, many claims. In this first of a series of posts, I examine the following set of claims from page 3:

Once the CableCURE^® molecule reaches those sites it performs two important functions. First, it chemically combines with the water, desiccating the water tree site. Second, it polymerizes; the polymeric chain that forms continues to grow until its chain length traps it inside of the water tree structure. Once trapped inside of the cables insulation, it serves as a “high K" style stress gradient reducing the electrical stress amplification that occurs at the tips of the water tree “branches". This two part functionality arrests the growth of water trees in aging cable.

I added highlighting to focus on the words and phrases of the claims that could create confusion; I left all puctuation and grammer errors untouched.  The first two words I highlighted could be characterized as quibbles, but I endeavor to be precise in my language. I am sure the author will appreciate my clarifications, since these claims taken together with others are held out as “irrefutable proof” of CableCURE efficacy. The third highlighted “high K” claim will receive the majority of my attention today.

Desiccating

The CableCURE molecule to which the author refers is phenylmethyldimethoxysilane or PMDMS for short. The chemical reaction of PMDMS with water is well understood. On average each PDDMS molecule consumes about one water molecule.  The effect is real, but the implication of the claim is that this desiccation-by-reaction is one of PMDMS’s two important functions.  It is not. The reaction with water is a necessary precursor to a subsequent condensation reaction. In the next sentence the author refers to this second reaction as polymerization.* Chemical desiccation is not important because the phenomenon is fleeting.  Consider the data reported by another UTILX employee in “The Importance of Diffusion and Water Scavenging in Dielectric Enhancement of Aged Medium Voltage Underground Cables” at the IEEE PES T&D meeting in Chicago, 1994.  Figure 4 and the accompanying text indicate that the water reactive capacity of PMDMS is exhausted at between 54 and 67 days for a 1/0 conductor at 60°C.  At lower temperatures the time to exhaustion might be longer, even on the order of a year or even two. When one is talking about decade-long life extension, a couple of months or a couple of years is not of critical importance. None-the-less, PMDMS does help keep the insulation dry for many, many years, but not by the mechanism suggested by the author. Instead, the mechanism is preferential wetting, which is well described in U.S. Patent 7,976,747 held by Novinium and in the paper “Advances in Chemical Rejuvenation of Submarine Cables” available here. The reason the distinction is important is that only Novinium^® brand Ultrinium™ 73X fluids include components with preferential wetting properties superior to PMDMS. Reducing the amount of water present in the insulation is indeed important, but not all rejuvenation fluids perform the same in water reduction efficacy.

Trap

The word “trap” is too absolute for this frog. Trap implies eternity and it just isn’t so.  In a December 29, 2010 post, “Chain Entanglement,” I explain how the larger oligomers substantially retard the exudation of the rejuvenation fluid, but it is not trapped. As shown in the figure nearby, improvements in rejuvenation molecules patented by Novinium (U.S. patent 7,658,808 and others pending) are designed to stick around in the insulation longer than PMDMS.

High K

There is no agreed-upon definition for High K, when applied to stress grading in power applications.  At 20°C and 60Hz, the dielectric constant or “K” of unfilled polyethylene is about 2.3 and EPR insulation varies from about 2.7 to 2.8 depending upon the specific compound. (See Bartnikas & Srivastava, Power and Communication Cables, IEEE 2000.)  The dielectric constant for PMDMS is 3.2. The dielectric constant of PMDMS is indeed higher than PE and EPR insulation, but using the word “high” is a bit of a stretch.  High K materials are quite often used in shrink-to-fit splices and terminations.  For example, 3M’s data sheet for its Quick Term II Silicone Rubber Termination Kit states:  “The High-K material has a dielectric constant of about 25.”  Pure water has a K of 78. Cyanobutylmethyldialkoxysilane or CBMDAS for short, a patented component of Novinium^® brand Ultrinium™ 73X fluids, has a K much greater than that of water.  3M’s stress control material, water, and CBMDAS are “real life” High-K materials.  I have arranged these six materials in a table nearby for easy reference.

I object to the statement proffered by the author for two reasons …

     1. It is an assertion without proof.  If the author believes that the mechanism he claims is significant with a K of just 3.3, he should provide a calculation or measurement as substantiation.

     2. The PMDMS is replacing water, which has a much higher dielectric constant.  How could that conceivably provide stress grading?  CBMDAS on the other hand, enjoys a K greater than the water it replaces.

Executive Summary

The author of “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid” is not a master of the facts. While CableCURE fluid does dry the cable and extend its life, the explanation of why this is so lacks foundation. Stress grading at the microscopic scale is possible with materials that have dielectric constants greater than the water that they replace.  One example of such a material is available only from Novinium and is protected by a U.S. Patent, other pending patents, and their foreign equivalents. While this frog cannot be sure what the author was thinking when he made his claim, I can provide a common-sense recommendation: Do not rely on secret documents that have not been peer reviewed … especially if they include assertions without proof.

Always basking in transparency,

Thermonuclear Bull Frog

*The correct terminology is oligomerization, but I will let that slide.

Bait & Switch

Dear Triple-D (Deceptive Denizen of the Deep),

Whenever there is a competitive bid, you guys bid your Perficio™ 011 fluid against my CableCURE^®/XL fluid.  Then after you win – and you almost always do – I find out that you don’t even supply Perficio fluid.  Aren’t you guilty of baiting and switching?  Won’t you start playing fair? Don’t you feel badly offering an inferior product?

SwitX

Dear SwitX-

The only thing that is triple-D on this girl is my belly! Deceptive and Frog don’t rhyme or alliterate for a good reason.

You should write more often. I love hearing from my competitor, but a little more civil tone would be appreciated. A great number of my newest friends used to work for your firm, so I know you work with some great folks. Check the non-compete portion of your employment agreement – we are hiring! Only the best, brightest, and nicest are welcome here though.

And we are the epitome of fairness. There are no secret handshakes. Novinium fluids and processes are all unambiguously documented on our web site. Can you say the same? The “inferior” word is a bit of a low blow. The Latin word “Perficio” means perfected, and Perficio 011 fluid is the perfection of the two-decade-old technology practiced by your colleagues. The formulation is dominated (over 90%) by the same monomer that dominates (over 90%) CableCURE/XL fluid.  However, Perficio 011 fluid is not flammable and, thanks to patented catalyst technology (7,700,871), soak periods are not required to enjoy similar medium term life extension performance. Perficio 011 fluid provides a safer, faster, and better circuit owner experience than the two-decade old technology against which it is typically pitted in a bid environment.

Perficio 011 fluid is, however, “inferior” in one sense.  It is inferior to Ultrinium™ brand fluids. Ultrinium fluids enjoy all of the benefits of Perficio fluid together with a host of performance advantages too numerous to mention. To explore those other performance advantages, start with my January 3, 2011 post on “Catalytic Considerations.”

For almost all of the bids that we earn with superior Perficio 011 fluid, our circuit owner customers choose to upgrade their technology from Perficio fluid to Ultrinium fluid. They do this, because although Perficio is superior to the two-decade-old approach, Ultrinium is safer, faster, and better still! Perficio is less costly (on a first cost basis) than Ultrinium technology for two basic reasons. First the fluid itself costs less, because the monomer, which makes up over 90% of the formulation, is made in high volumes for dozens of commercial applications – high volume means lower price. Second, the relatively small size of the monomer means its viscosity is lower, and hence the time required to inject is less than with the more advanced Ultrinium fluids. Lower injection times yield lower labor cost. The incrementally higher first cost of Ultrinium technology is easily justified by circuit owners because of its longer life.

Finally, I sleep well at night, because my circuit owner friends make the rules of the game. You and I play by their rules. If a circuit owner desires a bid for the lowest price with the technologically lowest common denominator, we have an obligation to provide that option. We don’t recommend it, but we are happy to supply it.  Our view is that when it comes to rejuvenation choices, circuit owners have three … a good choice, a better choice, and a best choice:

Good – Two-decade-old technology invented by Novinium founders.

Better – The perfection of the “good” choice is not flammable and does not require a soak period.

Best – Ultrinium 73X technology, which is tailored to each individual circuit and utilizes molecules designed from scratch for cable rejuvenation.

Don’t Wait to Switch,

T. B. Frog

CableCURE is a registered trademark of UtilX Corporation.

Dearest Green One,

I have a need to rehabilitate some aging URD circuits.  How long have Novinium fluids and injection technologies been in use?  I prefer to use proven technology.

Signed,

Neutral Corrosion Progression

Two of my disciples inquired of my July 7, 2010 post, Neutral Corrosion – How much is too much?

Dear Sheila and Kurt-

There are several different mechanisms for cable neutral corrosion.  The mechanisms are enumerated in Section 6 of IEEE 1617-2007 "Guide for Detection, Mitigation, and Control of Concentric Neutral Corrosion in Medium-Voltage Underground Cables." My colleague, Glen Bertini, was one of the participants in the ICC C7 working group that developed that document. The identified mechanisms of cable neutral corrosion in section 6 are:

1.   Galvanic corrosion

2.   Single metal corrosion

3.   Soil corrosion

4.   Differential aeration

5.   Stray currents

6.   Galvanic corrosion resulting specifically from tin coated neutral wires

Of these possible causes of neutral corrosion, soil corrosion and differential aeration are by the far the most predominant and problematic.  In both cases differences in soil chemistry along the path of the cable lead to differences in potential on exposed neutrals. Current flows in a loop through the soil and along the neutral. Copper is oxidized where the electrons leave the neutral and enter the soil and where there is oxygen (or sulfur) present. The rate of corrosion is a function of the current flow and is constrained by the availability of oxygen. Current flow, in turn, is proportional to the potential difference caused by the local differences in soil chemistry and inversely proportional to the resistance of the loop.  In the illustration nearby I show how this all works. Either from differential aeration or differences in the local soil chemistry the electrochemical potential is higher at point A than it is at point B.

As the neutral corrodes, the resistance in the loop goes up, which slows the rate of corrosion. The loss of the metallic copper itself leads to an increase of resistance. Less obviously, the non-conductive corrosion by-products (i.e. copper oxides) coat the copper surface and increase the resistance between the neutral and soil. Another set of chemical processes determine how quickly the copper oxides are transported off of the native copper surface below them. This copper-oxide transport mechanism is typically very slow in direct buried environments as the oxides are not appreciably water soluble.

At the same time the resistance is increasing, the second law of thermodynamics is at play reducing the chemical potential difference between A and B. The homogenization of chemical potential over time would occur whether or not a cable was present. Nature abhors chemical potential differences so chemical species migrate through the soil toward equilibrium – zero chemical potential difference.

Corrosion of bare concentric neutrals is highest when the neutrals are new and the soil was disturbed when the cable was installed. As some corrosion occurs and the second law reduces the chemical potential, the rate of corrosion decreases over time. In practice if the neutral has at least partially survived for several decades the rate of continuing degradation is trivial.

The other causes of neutral corrosion are much less prevalent. With the possible exception of stray currents impressed upon neutrals by active cathodic protection systems of neighboring structures (e.g. gas pipelines), all are similarly mitigated by the partial corrosion of the neutral and the equilibration of chemical potential due to the inexorable second law of thermodynamics.

If cows dragged their bulging bellies across the ground as I do they would be safe from stray current. Even with a substantial potential at the ground surface, I remain equipotential. If cows or other mammals are getting electrocuted the neutrals are entirely destroyed either locally or systematically. If the corrosion is systematic, the cables must be replaced. The source of the systematic corrosion should also be identified and eliminated – it’s not a natural phenomena; it’s man-made. Dead cows are the odd cases, but these cases get media attention, so the anecdotes are oft repeated.

In the real world, most concentric neutral corrosion is incredibly local. One or two feet of neutral become corroded. It turns out this problem is easy to diagnose and easy to repair. Diagnostic techniques are described in the aforementioned IEEE 1617-2007. A step-by-step and state-of-the-art procedure is available for free from Novinium Rejuvenation Instruction 12 (NRI 12), Electronic Cable Diagnosis and Pinpointing. Also free are step-by-step instructions (NRI 80), Neutral Corrosion Repair, that make fixing local corrosion a piece of cake. Once a local corrosion site has been pinpointed, chemistry can be employed to protect the location of the identified chemical potential difference. A suitably sized magnesium anode that has a chemical potential well above that of copper is installed as a sacrificial anode. The anode size can be adjusted to prevent neutral corrosion for any desired life.

Over twenty years of rejuvenation experience with a dearth of warranty claims in general and even fewer neutral corrosion issues specifically, provide direct evidence that whatever post-injection progression of neutral corrosion that does occur is of little practical significance.  At Novinium we have had zero failures and zero warranty claims that involved an increase of neutral corrosion after the cable was treated.

Equipotentially yours,

T. B. Frog

Really Long Term Life

In my December 29, 2010 post at …

Crazy-Competitor-Claims

Wonderer in the Wilderness inquired …

1. How can Novinium get the same cable life extension without a soak period?  It would seem to me that Novinium puts less fluid into the cable than one would get with a soak period.

In my first post addressing this question I provided an abbreviated answer. We learned from the abbreviated answer that that when Novinium founders conceived of the first generation of treatment fluid over two decades ago, there was a failure to check the relative diffusion rates of the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) monomer and the condensation catalyst we had chosen to provide long life.  This turned out to be a grave mistake, which we have corrected.  In a subsequent post on January 3, 2011 at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I

… I provided a more comprehensive answer, but I promised five new posts that would explain the functional improvement of the five kinds of ingredients in Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluids.  In this last of those five sub-posts, I explain how a component with a really ugly name provides extraordinarily long life.  Chemists call the material found in Ultrinium™ fluids cyanobutylmethyldimethoxysilane (Pronounced: Sigh-an-Oh•butte-ill•meth-ill•die-meth-ox-ee•sigh-lane); we will call it CBMDMS for short.

In the graph nearby I explain the first dimension of why CBMDMS works so well for so long.  The graph plots the “permeation product” of the three most commercially important rejuvenation silanes.  Permeation is the product of the diffusion coefficient and the solubility of the material in cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE).  The rate of fluid exudation from a cable is directly proportional to this permeation product.  Remember that if a fluid exudes out of the cable, it is not providing any life extension benefit.  The lower the permeation value, the longer the fluid will stay in the cable.  The permeation of the primary ingredient in Novinium’s Perficio™ 011 fluid and other older technology fluids is illustrated by the light-blue-colored (upper-most) line over the range of 15 to 90°C.  This fluid is called phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (Pronounced: Fen-ill•meth-ill•die-meth-ox-ee•sigh-lane) by chemists; we will call it PMDMS.  In a recent post, Chain Entanglement, I explained how extending the length of the side chains entangled the silicone in the polyethylene polymer chains and slowed the diffusion.  The orange line shows the advantage enjoyed by tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane (Pronounced: Tall-ill•eth-ill•die-meth-ox-ee•sigh-lane by chemists) or TEMDMS, which is a result of this chain entanglement.  The permeation rate and proportional exudation rate of TEMDMS, is always lower than that of PMDMS.  At low temperature they are about the same, but at 75°C, the TEMDMS permeates about 5-times slower.  But the focus of this post is the amazing CBMDMS, which enjoys a 25-fold to 45-fold permeation advantage over the PMDMS.  That’s a really big deal!  At 75°C CBMDMS will outlast PMDMS by a factor of 45!

TEMDMS and CBMDMS are available only from Novinium, as their use is protected by U.S. Patent 7,643,977, other pending applications, and their foreign equivalents.

The cyano-group, found only in Novinium rejuvenation products, grades stress in the same way, but at the nano-scale.    Before I explain how this works we need to define a thermonuclear-sized word:  dielectrophoresis, pronounced die-EE-lek-trow-for-EE-sis or DEP for short.  DEP is a phenomenon in which a force is exerted on a dielectric molecule when it is subjected to a non-uniform electric field – the greater the dielectric constant of the material, the greater the force.  The illustration nearby explains how the diverging electrical field near an imperfection imparts a force upon CBMDMS molecules and draws them into the local-region of highest electrical stress.  The presence of the high dielectric constant material smoothes the electrical stress and interferes in several ways with dielectric failure mechanisms:

1.    The local AC stress is reduced, and water trees grow more slowly.

2.    The high electrical fields around space charges are reduced, which reduces the likelihood of UV photon creation and the inception of free electrons.

3.    Any free electrons will not be accelerated to the same energy as they would have been in a greater field.

4.    The reduced local field increases both the partial discharge inception and extinction voltages.

Greater persistence in the insulation and stress grading provide longer post-injection life even in demanding applications.  Performance at high temperature and performance in cables with constrained geometry that limit the amount of fluid that can be supplied, are greatly enhanced by the presence of CBMDMS.

Longer life through better chemistry,

Thermonuclear B.F.

Chain Entanglement

In my December 29, 2010 post at …

Crazy-Competitor-Claims

Wonderer in the Wilderness inquired …

1. How can Novinium get the same cable life extension without a soak period?  It would seem to me that Novinium puts less fluid into the cable than one would get with a soak period.

In my first post addressing this question I provided an abbreviated answer. We learned from the abbreviated answer that that when Novinium founders conceived of the first generation of treatment fluid over two decades ago, we failed to check the relative diffusion rates of the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) monomer and the condensation catalyst we had chosen to provide long life.  This turned out to be a grave mistake, which we have corrected.  In a subsequent post on January 3, 2011 at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I

… I provided a more comprehensive answer, but I promised five new posts that would explain the functional improvement of the five kinds of ingredients in Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluids.  In this fourth of five sub-posts, I explain the concept of chain entanglement.

I use one of the tailored molecules found in Ultrinium™ fluids called tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane or TEM for short.  I was not willing to go on a diet of any kind, but because I desired to better illustrate chain entanglement, I had to create a much smaller clone of myself.  I call my clone Nano-me, because she will be exploring molecular interactions in the nanometer range.  Do not let her diminutive size fool you; she is as clever as I.

On Frogograph 1, Nano-me shows the rather boring structure of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE).  The carbon-carbon chains are typically several thousand carbon atoms long.  About once every one-thousand carbons there is a cross link site, which Nano-me is illuminating with her green laser.

On Frogograph 2, an electron micrograph¹ at 40,000X magnification illustrates the structure of the crystalline and amorphous phases of the polymer.  Roughly half of the PE is crystalline; the balance is amorphous.  If you had frog eyes you would be able to see the lightly shaded, generally parallel lines that are crystalline platelets.  The darker areas between the crystalline regions are amorphous.

On Frogograph 3, Nano-me is illuminating a representation of a carbon-carbon polymer chain – the squiggly line.  The chains are tightly packed serpentines in the crystalline region and wander randomly in the amorphous region.  Each crystalline platelet is about 10 nano-meters thick, or about 75 carbon-carbon bonds.  The amorphous layer sandwiched between platelets is roughly the same thickness.  The vast majority of diffusion that occurs, does so in the amorphous region, but even crystalline polymers are not impervious to diffusion.

Frogograph 4 shows a 3D-section of two crystalline platelets and an anatomically accurate representation of the tangle of carbon-carbon chains that make up the amorphous cream filling – think about one of those chocolate cookies with the sugary white filling.  In the upper right-hand corner and to the same scale – a water molecule is illustrated.  It is pretty easy to visualize the water diffusing through the intra-molecular spaces of the amorphous polymer.  On the left of the cream filling is a monomer of the aforementioned tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane or TEM monomer.  Considerably larger than water, the TEM monomer can squeeze through the amorphous layer, but it must bend and rotate tortuously to diffuse.  As we have previously explored in Catalytic Considerations I and Catalytic Considerations II, the monomer reacts with water it encounters, and it grows as it does so.  Nano-me is pushing gently on a typical hexamer.  Six monomers, plus seven waters, yield a hexamer.  Nano-me is encountering a great deal of resistance because of chain entanglement.  If you look closely at the TEM molecules you will notice rings of six carbon atoms.  These rings include what chemist call conjugated double bonds.  This ring structure is quite rigid.  Furthermore, the rings have a two-carbon chain to the silicone backbone and another carbon hanging off the end of the ring.  These structures stick out from the molecule and slow diffusion.  It is a bit like sticking your paws straight out to the side of your body and then pushing your way through a crowd.  Movement is retarded and you are unlikely to make any friends.  These “rude sidearms” were tailored for entanglement … specifically for the rejuvenation application.  The TEM-class of materials is available only in Novinium’s Ultrinium formulations and is protected by U.S. Patent 7,643,977, other pending applications, and foreign equivalents.

TEM is a custom designed molecule for the rejuvenation application.  It has no other commercial uses.  This is in contrast to the legacy class of materials in use prior to the introduction of Ultrinium fluids.  Those older materials, which have dozens of applications and hence were readily available, are not optimized for the cable life extension application.  The molecular optimization included in TEM facilitates a significant increase in post-injection anticipated life or reduces the volume of fluid required for more modest life extension periods.  Longer life through better chemistry!

Encouraging entanglements,

Thermonuclear

¹Kindly provided by Fred Steennis of KEMA in the Netherlands.

AO, AO … it’s home from work we go

In my December 29, 2010 post at …

Crazy-Competitor-Claims

Wonderer in the Wilderness inquired …

1. How can Novinium get the same cable life extension without a soak period?  It would seem to me that Novinium puts less fluid into the cable than one would get with a soak period.

In my first post addressing this question I provided an abbreviated answer. We learned from the abbreviated answer that that when Novinium founders conceived of the first generation of treatment fluid over two decades ago we failed to check the relative diffusion rates of the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) monomer and the condensation catalyst we had chosen to provide long life.  This turned out to be a grave mistake, which we have corrected.  In a subsequent post on January 3, 2011 at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I

… I provided a more comprehensive answer, but I promised five new posts that would explain the functional improvement of the five kinds of ingredients in Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluids.

In this third of five sub-posts we will explore the role of the anti-oxidants (AO).  Every human knows the benefits of including anti-oxidants in their diets.  I am not as susceptible to oxidative damage, because I keep my temperature lower – that way I do not have to consume foul tasting raspberries and blueberries.  Besides their sickening sweet taste, the antioxidants found in berries are single-shot deals.  A single anti-oxidant molecule consumes a single oxidizer.  What we need for cables is a molecule that quenches the nasty oxidizer and then regenerates itself – indefinitely.  It would be nice for people too, but don’t hold your breath.  For cables the folks at BASF^® and Novinium have a solution.

The primary AO in Novinium’s Ultrinium™ fluid formulations is BASF’s Irgastab^® Cable KV10.  Furthermore all of the components of the Ultrinium UV package have anti-oxidant properties.  These materials were described in To UV or not to UV.  In the vernacular, these UV components are “two-fers” or “two-for-one” ingredients, because they fulfill at least two¹ independent and important life-extension functions.

Antioxidants are included in virtually all modern cable compound formulations.  Originally deployed by polymer compound manufacturers to prevent oxidation during cable extrusion, it has been shown by

Cold blooded and not oxidized,

Thermonuclear

¹Ferrocene and Tinuvin^® 123 are “three-fers.”  Ferrocene is an anti-oxidant (AO), an ultra-violet absorber (UVA), and a voltage stabilizer.  Tinuvin^® 123 is an anti-oxidant (AO), a hindered amine light stabilizer (HALS), and a methanolic corrosion inhibitor.