Influence of the Heterophasic Structure and Its Characteristics on the DC Electrical Properties of Impact Polypropylene Copolymer

• DOI: 10.3390/polym17070951
• Publication Date: 2025-04-01T08:21:01Z
• Authors: Xinhao Huang; Jiaming Yang; Xindong Zhao; Xu Yang; Kai Wang; Dianyu Wang; Zhe Fu

Space charge injection in polypropylene (PP) significantly weakens the stability of HVDC cables. Impact polypropylene copolymer (IPC) is often used as insulation material for AC cables, but in the DC field, IPC has the problem of space charge accumulation. This is because there is a multi-phase structure inside the IPC to which ethylene monomer was added in the production process, and the difference in physicochemical properties of each phase is an important reason for the accumulation of space charge inside the material. In this work, the vinyl phases and propenyl phases of two types of IPC were separated. The film samples were prepared and tested at 30 °C and 50 °C for DC electrical conductivity, and at 30 °C, 50 °C, and 80 °C for space charge. The experimental results show that the DC conductivity of vinyl phases is significantly higher than that of propenyl phases in both types of IPC. The degrees of mismatch between the DC conductivity of vinyl phase and that of propenyl phase are different in the two types of IPC, and the mismatch degree of DC conductivity is from several times to hundreds of times. The conductivity of the two vinyl samples is ohmic. The conductivity of the two propenyl phases shows nonlinearity under different electric field intensity, and the mismatch degree of the two phases increases with temperature. Compared to untreated IPC, at all test temperatures, the maximum space charge density of the propenyl samples is much lower, which can be reduced by about 1/3 at 50 °C and by about 50% at 80 °C. The density of heteropolar charge produced by impurity ionization in the samples and the depth of electrode injection both decreased. At each temperature, the distortion rate of the electric field in propenyl samples is lower than that in IPC, the distortion rate can be reduced by more than 15%, and the distortion rate can be reduced by nearly half at 80 °C. The charge dissipation characteristic of propenyl samples during depolarization is also optimized compared with IPC samples, the time required for charge dissipation to reach stability is shortened, and the residual charge density in the sample is reduced at the end of depolarization. In addition, the relevance between the variation of DC conductivity of phases and space charge characteristics was discussed according to SCLC (space charge limited current) theory. This work provides a feasible reference for the manufacture of high-reliability polypropylene-based cable material with excellent insulation performance.