Acceleration of hydrophobicity transfer rate of contaminated HTV silicone rubber by plasma jet

Silicone rubber, as the important material of composite insulator, has been widely used in the electrical power system due to its excellent hydrophobicity transfer performance. It is of great significance to find an effective method to improve the hydrophobicity of severely contaminated HTV silicone rubber when it lose its natural hydrophobicity transfer performance. This paper found that treatment of the atmospheric pressure plasma jet using dielectric barrier discharge method could promote the hydrophobicity transfer rate of the contaminated HTV silicone rubber when it was heavily contaminated. Factors such as processing time and transfer time have a significant effect on the treatment effect. It was shown that the hydrophobicity recovery rate increased with the increase of the processing time. After long time transfer, the improved hydrophobicity of the contaminated HTV surface would not disappear. Contaminated composite insulator slices were treated by the high-power plasma jet device and the hydrophobicity of the slices was obviously improved in a short processing time (2 to 8 seconds) as well. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the HTV surface proved that it was the active species of the plasma jet that promoted the hydrophobic molecules to transfer to the pollution surface by reacting with the HTV material.