TAGS: Sustainability / Natural Coatings
As a part of Qatar University’s (QU) research mission, a research team at the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM) and the Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences developed and tested coatings for insulators used in electrical transmission lines.
The research team focuses on improving long-term performance and developing sustainable coatings for high-voltage insulation systems for electric power transmission in the State of Qatar and the Gulf region.
Testing Unit for Coatings Performance Evaluation
QU now has a testing unit to evaluate the performance of the coating (erosion and tracking) behavior of the newly designed coatings, and the testing is done according to the industrial standards.
Qatar has a world pioneering experience adapting this type of coatings for more than two decades. The use of silicone rubber (SIR) coating material on ceramic insulators has been proposed successfully.
However, in the long term and particularly in Qatar and the Gulf, humidity, high UV radiation, temperature and lack of rain could lead to the temporary loss of hydrophobicity which causes a degradation of the coatings. The degradation could result in leaving the overall infrastructure supplying critical clients, such as the oil and gas industry, at risk of electrical power interruption.
In addition, local-based materials were utilized as effective fillers to improve the electrical insulation performance of the coating materials, using green materials, which supports the environmental sustainability aims of Qatar National Vision 2030.
The work is a collaboration between Texas A&M University, Qatar and the University of Waterloo in Canada, and is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund. The work also involves Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) and the industrial partner CSL-Canada, a developer of this kind of coating worldwide, and is the vending company for the Gulf region.
Source: Qatar University