Research on Improving the Partial Discharge Initial Voltage of SiC/EP Composites by Utilizing Filler Surface Modification and Nanointerface Interaction.

SiC/EP composites are promising insulating materials due to their high thermal conductivity, stable chemical properties, and nonlinear electrical conductivity. However, the compatibility of micron-sized SiC particles with the organic polymer matrix is poor, and defects such as air gaps may be introduced at the interface, which reduces the partial discharge resistance of the composite materials. In order to improve the partial discharge initial voltage (PDIV) of SiC/EP composites, in this paper, SiC/EP composites with different proportions were prepared by surface modification of filler and compound of micro/nano particles. Firstly, a method of secondary modification of SiC particles was proposed, which was first modified by alkali washing and then silane coupling agent KH560, and the effectiveness of the modification was verified. Therefore, the interface bonding ability between the filler and the matrix was improved, the air gap defects at the interface were reduced, and the PDIV of the composite material was improved. When the filling ratio is 10 wt%, the PDIV was enhanced by 13.75%, and when the filling ratio was further increased, the improvement was reduced. In contrast, the introduction of nanoparticles into the composites can effectively improve the PDIV of composite materials. In this study, nanoparticles were used to form a shell-core structure in epoxy resins to exert their huge specific surface area and active surface properties, thereby changing the overall crosslinking properties of the composites. Through experimental research, the optimal micro-nano particle compounding ratio was explored. Under the optimal mixing ratio, the PDIV of the composite material can be increased by more than 90%.

Streamer Propagation along the Insulator with the Different Curved Profiles of the Shed.

The flashover along the insulator endangers the reliable operation of the electrical power system. The reasonable curved profiles of the shed could improve the flashover voltage, which would reduce power system outages. The research on the influence of the curved profiles of the shed on the streamer propagation along the insulator made of polymer was presented in the paper. The streamer propagation "stability" field, path, and velocity affected by the curved profiles of the shed, were measured by ultraviolet camera, ICCD camera, and photomultipliers. The "surface" component of the streamer is stopped at the shed with the different curved profiles, while the "air" component could go round the shed and reach the cathode. The streamer propagation "stability" fields are inversely proportional to the curved profiles of the shed. The streamer propagation velocities are proportional to the curved profiles of the shed. The relationship between the streamer propagation and the flashover propagation was discussed in depth. The subsequent flashover propagation is greatly affected by the streamer propagation path and "stability" field. Furthermore, the influence of the material properties on the streamer propagation path was also discussed in depth.

Research on the Compound Optimization Method of the Electrical and Thermal Properties of SiC/EP Composite Insulating Material.

In this paper, in order to improve the electrical and thermal properties of SiC/EP composites, the methods of compounding different crystalline SiC and micro-nano SiC particles are used to optimize them. Under different compound ratios, the thermal conductivity and breakdown voltage parameters of the composite material were investigated. It was found that for the SiC/EP composite materials of different crystal types of SiC, when the ratio of α and ß silicon carbide is 1:1, the electrical performance of the composite material is the best, and the breakdown strength can be increased by more than 10% compared with the composite material filled with single crystal particles. For micro-nano compound SiC/EP composites, different total filling amounts of SiC correspond to different optimal ratios of micro/nano particles. At the optimal ratio, the introduction of nanoparticles can increase the breakdown strength of the composite material by more than 10%. Compared with the compound of different crystalline SiC, the advantage is that the introduction of a small amount of nanoparticles can play a strong role in enhancing the break-down field strength. For the filled composite materials, the thermal conductivity mainly depends on whether an effective heat conduction channel can be constructed. Through experiments and finite element simulation calculations, it is found that the filler shape and particle size have a greater impact on the thermal conductivity of the composite material, when the filler shape is rounder, the composite material can more effectively construct the heat conduction channel.

Analysis of the Electrical and Thermal Properties for Magnetic Fe3O4-Coated SiC-Filled Epoxy Composites.

Orderly arranged Silicon carbide (SiC)/epoxy (EP) composites were fabricated. SiC was made magnetically responsive by decorating the surface with iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. Three treatment methods, including without magnetization, pre-magnetization and curing magnetization, were used to prepare SiC/EP composites with different filler distributions. Compared with unmodified SiC, magnetic SiC with core-shell structure was conducive to improve the breakdown strength of SiC/EP composites and the maximum enhancement rate was 20.86%. Among the three treatment methods, SiC/EP composites prepared in the curing-magnetization case had better comprehensive properties. Under the action of magnetic field, magnetic SiC were orderly oriented along the direction of an external field, thereby forming SiC chains. The magnetic alignment of SiC restricted the movement of EP macromolecules or polar groups to some extent, resulting in the decrease in the dielectric constant and dielectric loss. The SiC chains are equivalent to heat flow channels, which can improve the heat transfer efficiency, and the maximum improvement rate was 23.6%. The results prove that the orderly arrangement of SiC had a favorable effect on dielectric properties and thermal conductivity of SiC/EP composites. For future applications, the orderly arranged SiC/EP composites have potential for fabricating insulation materials in the power electronic device packaging field.

Mechanical, Thermal, and Electrical Properties of BN-Epoxy Composites Modified with Carboxyl-Terminated Butadiene Nitrile Liquid Rubber.

Filled high thermal conductivity epoxy composite solves the problem of the low thermal conductivity of the epoxy resin itself, but the addition of the thermal conductive filler reduces the mechanical properties of the composite, which limits its application in the field of high voltage insulation. In this work, carboxyl-terminated butadiene nitrile liquid rubber (CTBN) was used to toughen the boron nitride-epoxy hybrid system, and the effects of different contents of CTBN on the mechanical properties, thermal conductivity, glass transition temperature, thermal stability, and dielectric properties of the composites were investigated. The results showed that when the content of CTBN was 5-15 wt.%, the CTBN formed a dispersed island structure in the epoxy resin matrix. The toughness of the composite increased by about 32%, the breakdown strength was improved, and the thermal conductivity was about 160% higher than that of pure epoxy resin. As the CTBN content increased, the glass transition temperature and thermal stability of the composite decreased and the dielectric constant and the dielectric loss increased. When the CTBN content is 10-15 wt.%, a toughened epoxy composite material with better comprehensive properties is obtained.

Enhanced Electron Injection and Exciton Confinement for Pure Blue Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diodes by Introducing Partially Oxidized Aluminum Cathode.

Stable and efficient red (R), green (G), and blue (B) light sources based on solution-processed quantum dots (QDs) play important roles in next-generation displays and solid-state lighting technologies. The brightness and efficiency of blue QDs-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) remain inferior to their red and green counterparts, due to the inherently unfavorable energy levels of different colors of light. To solve these problems, a device structure should be designed to balance the injection holes and electrons into the emissive QD layer. Herein, through a simple autoxidation strategy, pure blue QD-LEDs which are highly bright and efficient are demonstrated, with a structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/Poly-TPD/QDs/Al:Al2O3. The autoxidized Al:Al2O3 cathode can effectively balance the injected charges and enhance radiative recombination without introducing an additional electron transport layer (ETL). As a result, high color-saturated blue QD-LEDs are achieved with a maximum luminance over 13,000 cd m-2, and a maximum current efficiency of 1.15 cd A-1. The easily controlled autoxidation procedure paves the way for achieving high-performance blue QD-LEDs.

Efficient perovskite/organic integrated solar cells with extended photoresponse to 930 nm and enhanced near-infrared external quantum efficiency of over 50.

Enhancing the light-harvesting activity is an effective way to improve the power conversion efficiency of solar cells. Although rapid enhancement in the PCE up to a value of 22.1% has been achieved for perovskite solar cells, only part of the sunlight, i.e., with wavelengths below 800-850 nm is utilized due to the limited bandgap of the perovskite materials, resulting in most of the near infrared light being wasted. To broaden the photoresponse of perovskite solar cells, we demonstrate an efficient perovskite/organic integrated solar cell containing both CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite and PBDTTT-E-T:IEICO organic photoactive layers. By integrating a low band gap PBDTTT-E-T:IEICO active layer on a perovskite layer, the maximum wavelength for light harvesting of the ISC increased to 930 nm, sharply increasing the utilization of near infrared radiation. In addition, the external quantum efficiency of the integrated device exceeded 50% in the near infrared range. The MAPbI3/PBDTTT-E-T:IEICO ISCs show an enhanced short-circuit current density of over 24 mA cm-2, which is the highest existing value among perovskite/organic integrated solar cells and much higher than the traditional MAPbI3 based perovskite solar cells. The results reveal that a perovskite/organic integrated structure is a promising strategy to extend and enhance sunlight utilization for perovskite solar cells.

Incorporating an Electrode Modification Layer with a Vertical Phase Separated Photoactive Layer for Efficient and Stable Inverted Nonfullerene Polymer Solar Cells.

For bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSCs), the donors and acceptors featuring specific phase separation and concentration distribution within the electron donor/acceptor blends crucially affect the exciton dissociation and charge transportation. Herein, efficient and stable nonfullerene inverted PSCs incorporating a phase separated photoactive layer and a titanium chelate electrode modification layer are demonstrated. Water contact angle (WCA), scanning kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques are implemented to characterize the morphology of photoactive layers. Compared with the control conventional device, the short-circuit current density (Jsc) is enhanced from 14.74 to 17.45 mAcm-2. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) for the inverted PSCs with a titanium (diisopropoxide)-bis-(2,4-pentanedionate) (TIPD) layer increases from 9.67% to 11.69% benefiting from the declined exciton recombination and fairly enhanced charge transportation. Furthermore, the nonencapsulated inverted device with a TIPD layer demonstrates the best long-term stability, 85% of initial PCE remaining and an almost undecayed open-circuit voltage (Voc) after 1440 h. Our results reveal that the titanium chelate is an excellent electrode modification layer to incorporate with a vertical phase separated photoactive layer for producing high-efficiency and high-stability inverted nonfullerene PSCs.

The Effect of Donor and Nonfullerene Acceptor Inhomogeneous Distribution within the Photoactive Layer on the Performance of Polymer Solar Cells with Different Device Structures.

Due to the inhomogeneous distribution of donor and acceptor materials within the photoactive layer of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (OSCs), proper selection of a conventional or an inverted device structure is crucial for effective exciton dissociation and charge transportation. Herein, we investigate the donor and acceptor distribution within the non-fullerene photoactive layer based on PBDTTT-ET:IEICO by time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS) and scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM), indicating that more IEICO enriches on the surface of the photoactive layer while PBDTTT-ET distributes homogeneously within the photoactive layer. To further understand the effect of the inhomogeneous component distribution on the photovoltaic performance, both conventional and inverted OSCs were fabricated. As a result, the conventional device shows a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.83% which is 41% higher than that of inverted one (6.26%). Eventually, we employed nickel oxide (NiOx) instead of PEDOT:PSS as anode buffer layer to further enhance the stability and PCE of OSCs with conventional structure, and a promising PCE of 9.12% is achieved.

Construction of three-dimensional graphene interfaces into carbon fiber textiles for increasing deposition of nickel nanoparticles: flexible hierarchical magnetic textile composites for strong electromagnetic shielding.

Since manipulating electromagnetic waves with electromagnetic active materials for environmental and electric engineering is a significant task, here a novel prototype is reported by introducing reduced graphene oxide (RGO) interfaces in carbon fiber (CF) networks for a hierarchical carbon fiber/reduced graphene oxide/nickel (CF-RGO-Ni) composite textile. Upon charaterizations of the microscopic morphologies, electrical and magnetic properties, the presence of three-dimensional RGO interfaces and bifunctional nickel nanoparticles substantially influences the related physical properties in the resulting hierarchical composite textiles. Eletromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance suggests that the hierarchical composite textiles hold a strong shielding effectiveness greater than 61 dB, showing greater advantages than conventional polymeric and foamy shielding composites. As a polymer-free lightweight structure, flexible CF-RGO-Ni composites of all electromagnetic active components offer unique understanding of the multi-scale and multiple mechanisms in electromagnetic energy consumption. Such a novel prototype of shielding structures along with convenient technology highlight a strategy to achieve high-performance EMI shielding, coupled with a universal approach for preparing advanced lightweight composites with graphene interfaces.