Influence of ZnO Nanoparticles on the Light Absorption Spectrum of PMMA for Ablation Dominated Arc Interruption

Ablative materials are urgently needed for arc extinction cases like switchgears and breakers. Optical radiation is one of the major ways to dissipate the energy of the arc. It has been claimed that using extremely small sized particles could shift the absorption spectrum of the base material providing a potential way/method to manufacture polymer based ablative materials. PMMA has excellent transmittance and can be easily made into film by solution casting. Besides, PMMA doped with nanocomposites could be coated on other materials to form an ablation resistance coating layer. Nanoscale ZnO was adopted as the filler. The ZnO nanoparticles were dispersed in PMMA/solvent solution before the casting. SEM was used to check the dispersion of the filler. And spectrums from 150 nm to 500 nm of the films with/without quantum dots were measured respectively, to explore the shifting effect of optical property. The formation conditions and dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles in PMMA film was derived. Spectrums of PMMA films with different contents of ZnO were measured. Also, the polymer sample with a coating of PMMA-ZnO nanocomposite was prepared. Based on the results, the ZnO nanoparticles shows an impressive improvement on the ability of optical absorption. And the size of nanoparticle has a significant influence on the absorption characteristic. Considering the agglomeration problem we found, additional procedures must be taken to get a better dispersion including ultrasonic dispersion and using other chemicals. A new testing system with corresponding simulation method to evaluate/investigate the ablative properties of the samples/polymer was also introduced/come up with.