The use of compact high voltage equipment has become a necessity, along with the high value
of land for substations and the need for environmentally friendly insulation materials makes a
solid insulation one of the best alternatives used as insulation for high voltage equipment.
Solid insulation materials basically have a very high electric strength, and this strength is
distinctly higher than the strength of liquids and gases. Solid insulation also has specific
advantages: High breakdown strengths (e.g. for thin films), reduced stresses due to field
displacement and their applicability as mechanical construction materials. It is well known
that Epoxy Resin is the best insulation material in Solid Insulated Switchgear (SIS) due to its
excellent mechanical, electrical properties and chemical stability. In this research, the
authors compared four types of Epoxy resins, namely EP/C60, epoxy added with 100% C60
fullerene as filler (EP Type A); EP/NMST, epoxy added with 60% C60 fullerene, 20% C70
fullerene and 20% others high fullerene (EP Type B); EP/NPH, epoxy added with 40% C60
fullerene, 40% C70 fullerene and 20% others high fullerene (EP Type C) and Neat EP, epoxy
without adding fullerene as a filler (EP Type D). EP/C60, EP/NMST and EP/NPH has same
content of filler, that is 0.22 %wt. The dielectric strength and the dielectric spectroscopy
measurement were performed to analyzed the influences of epoxy resin impurities with
fulerene addition in its dielectric strength and dielectric properties of epoxy resin. The results
of AC breakdown measurement show that dielectric strength electrical breakdown of EP/C60,
EP/NMST, and EP/NPH increased by 33 %, 32 % and 30 %. The dielectric spectroscopy
measurement show that the impurities of epoxy resin with fullerene increased the dielectric
constant and decreased the dielectric loss factor of epoxy composites. Quantum Chemical
Calculation (QCC) was also performed using GausView 5.9 software to analyze the electron
energy state for explaining the improvement of electrical breakdown by adding different kinds
of fullerene to epoxy resin. The QCC results show that the addition of fullerene to epoxy resin
can increase the electronegativity of epoxy resin from 1.44 to 3.66 eV. The increase in
electronegativity of epoxy resin is more likely to allow epoxy resins to capture free electrons,
resulting in the increase in the dielectric strength. compared to that of Neat EP,
respectively.