Anomalous First Breakdown Behavior for HFO1234ze(E)

Environmentally friendly gases have been widely researched to replace sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) in compressed gas insulated equipment for the power industry. This work presents the experimental investigations on the gas stability of HFO1234ze(E) (hereinafter referred to as C3H2F4) where a unique first breakdown voltage behavior is found for AC, DC and lightning impulse (LI) voltages. A splatter of dark colored soot is observed on the plane electrode after the first breakdown that is followed by consecutive LI breakdowns chopped on the front. The breakdown characteristic stabilizes after the first voltage withstand and the 50% breakdown voltage (U50) is calculated using the subsequent stabilized data series. This first breakdown behavior of C3H2F4 is consistently observed for different tested electrode materials and configurations. The voltage difference between the first breakdown and U50 varies significantly due to the work function of the electrode material and electric field uniformity. For AC breakdowns with comparatively higher discharge energy, the data series is more consistent after the first breakdown but with significant level of soot formation indicating that this is the main influencing factor for the first breakdown effect. Soot is identified as fluorinated carbon through X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses.