SYMPOSIUM ON INSULATION MATERIALS Presented before the Division of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry st the 94th Meeting of the American Chemical Society. Rocheater. N. Y., September 6 to 10. 1937.
T U S T as the human body isdependent for
vital to the solution of manv of these moblems. This region is a -fertile fieid for tem which employs nerve wiring probably chemical research. totaling several hundred thousand feet in Among the host of problems which relength, so the modern world is dependent on a vast arid coniquire the combined efforts of the chemist, physicist, and plicated network of wires-telephone, telegraph, and electric electrical engineer are: t,he development and testing of power. Either overhead or underground, these wires penetrate better electrical resins; improvement of oil- and wax-imto practically every niche of human habitation. They are all pregnated paper for high-voltage cahles and capacitors; deinsulated. A wide variety of chemical materials is u w l tn trimination of the effect of water-soluble inorganic salts, insulate them--.oil- and wax-impregnated paper, cotton, lignins, and other impurities in cable paper on the life of the bitumen, rubber, natural an4 synthetic resins, comj,ressrd cable; the development of oils which, when used in conjuncinorganic oxides. tion with paper, &re resistant to electrical breakdown and a t the same time to oxidation; deterioration of impregThe electrical insulation industry is to a great extant, chemical----for example, oil-impregnated nating oil through and .. nolvnlcrization . paper insulation for high-voltage ungas forrriation as a result of gaseous d e r g r o u n d cables. In manufacture, elec t r i c d i s c h a r g e ; developnient of the selection and testing of insulatcornna-resistant rubbers for high vole ing materials is chernical, the processage; corrosioii-resistant metal covering is chemical, and the research and ings f o r insulated cables; develnpdevelopment of improved materials are merit of impregnating oils which do to a great extent chemical. I n use, not react with cable metals to form the testing of the new product is soaps; nature of dielectric breakdown; chemical, and the study of deteriorarauses of dielectric loss; mechanism tion of these products which takes ol conduction of nonaqueous solvents. p l a c e d u r i n g operat.ion is chemical. It is the purpose of these papers not Yet despite the overwhelmingly chemionly to present new technical data but cal nature of most problems in tlie to show to chemists in other fields the insulation field, the burden of the attack scope of the problems in i n s u l a t i o n has so far rested on the shoulders nf studies, and to give some idea of the electrical engineers and physicists rather. nature of the problems which physicists than chemists. Many cable factories a n d e l e c t r i c a l e n g i n e e r s have been are staffed chiefly with electrical or attacking. In the first paper a physimechanical engineers. The situatiou cal chemist will discuss causes of diwould hardly be more extreme if a largc electric loss in liquids; in the second chemical company went into the nianuan electrical engineer will describe his facture of insulated wires and cables researches on oils carried out in the and employed only a few electrical Laboratories of one of the big oil comengineers for testing. ' Both situations panies; and in the final paper an elccare unbalanced. If rapid progress is trical engineer will give the results nf to be made in the industry, more chemoxidation studies of oils made by chemists should Le einploycd, and the chemiists, electrical engineers, and physicists cal side of the problem should be emworking together in a university laboraphasized more. t o r y . T h u s we h a v e adopted the I n the electrical insulation field, then, broad view of bringing in specialists we find a borderline region between on some of the more vital angles of physics and chemistry which has been the insulation problem irrespective of Courtesy, Det~oitEdison Componii e x p l o r e d h u t l i t t l e by the chemist. whether they are chemists, electrical Yet his viewpoint, his wntribution, is engineers, or physicists. AUTOMATIC POLETOPSWITCH
J its operation on a couipiex iervous sys-
KENNETH S. WYATT Symposium Chairman
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