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.

To UV or not to UV

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 second of five sub-posts, we will explore the role of the ultra-violet absorbers (UVAs) and hindered amine (pronounced a-mean) light stabilizers or HALS.  The primary UVA is BASF^®’s Tinuvin^® 1130.  Additionally ferrocene (pronounced fair-O-seen), which was discussed in my last post, Voltage Stabilizer, is not only a voltage stabilizer, but also absorbs ultraviolet photons in the appropriate wave length.  In the vernacular, ferrocene is a “two-fer” or a “two-for-one” ingredient, because it fulfills two independent and important life-extension functions.

As you know, frog skin is very sensitive, and so I slather on the UVA (sunscreen) every time I am out in the sun – doing so helps keep me beautiful.  Cables buried one meter underground do not need protection from the sun’s relentless ultraviolet onslaught.  They do need UV protection, however, from UV that is created when space charges recombine near the ends of water trees.  Consider for example the work of Bamji, Bulinski, Chen and Densley in the Proceeding of the 3^rd International Conference on Properties and Applications of Dielectric Materials, held in Tokyo in July 1991:

“… at points of electric stress enhancement in the polymer, the light emitted during the initiation phase of electrical treeing is … due to the recombination of electrons and holes injected into the material.  The spectra of the emitted light is in the visible and ultraviolet ranges.  The ultraviolet light can photodegrade the polymer and lead to electrical treeing.”

It is easy for us all to understand how UVA materials work.  They are opaque to UV light.  The potentially damaging UV photon strikes a resonance stabilized structure in the UVA molecule, is safely absorbed, and is converted to harmless heat.  That’s how sunscreens for our skin work too.  On my skin, if I want to stop 100% of the UV photons I need to apply unattractive zinc-oxide in a thick pasty layer – yuck!  In insulation if I want to stop 100% of the UV photons, I need to apply clay – we call those insulations EPR, EPDM, et al.  So UVA materials cannot intercept 100% of the damaging UV photons.

Unlike the common experience we all have with UVA materials, HALS are not within our normal experience.  HALS are free radical scavengers and they are beneficial, because the mechanism of photodegradation involves the creation of a free radical by errant UV photons – a photon strikes an electron and imparts so much energy to the electron that the molecule, to which it was bound, can no longer hold on to it.  A free radical (an unpaired electron in the molecule) and a free electron are created.  Electrons don’t like to be unpaired, and so, they search out other electrons and try to borrow them from their parent molecules.  As they do this, they tear apart innocent molecules and generally there is still an unpaired electron after the damage from the first encounter.  The free radical survives (or spawns a daughter) and creates cascading systemic damage.  HALS quench free radicals, and here is the cool part, they auto-regenerate to a HALS after they kill the free radical.  How cool is that?  I wish they would make HALS for amphibians, because I could take a HALS pill and snack on crickets all day without worrying about the consequences of free radicals ravaging my DNA.

It gets even better.  The word “synergy” is overused in business circles and promised synergies are often quixotic.  The poster tadpole for synergy is the interaction between UVA and HALS components.  Alone, each has a positive effect on cable life, but together they work better than the sum of their parts – one plus one equals three!  Ultrinium™ 732 and 733 fluids and Perficio™ 011 fluid utilize BASF^®’s state-of-the-art Tinuvin^® 123 HALS.  As we learned in the previous post, DMDB Doubts, Tinuvin 123 also stabilizes aluminum strand patina, which all but eliminates the potential for strand corrosion suffered by older injection technology.  Tinuvin 123 provides another formulation two-fer.

For over two decades, UVA and HALS have been included in TRXLPE (tree retardant cross-linked polyethylene) formulations.  See for example U.S. Patent 4,870,121, "Electrical Tree Suppression in High-voltage Polymeric Insulation,” September 26, 1989.  With the introduction of Ultrinium™ 732 and 733 fluids, Novinium delivers improved UV stabilization using the best available technology.  Novinium’s UV package is protected by U.S. Patent 7,658,808 and other pending patents and their foreign equivalents.  Only Novinium rehabilitation technology provides UV stabilization in the proper UV range.  To learn how first generation technology fails to address the UV photons created by space charge recombination, see Section 8 of the CIGRÉ Canada paper of October 18, 2010, “Cable Rejuvenation Mechanisms: An Update.”

To UV or not to UV, that is the question.  Answer:  Come out of the sunlight into the shade; live longer and with greater reliability,

Thermonuclear