Investigation of the Effect of Adding Aluminum Trihydrate (ATH) Particles on Electrical and Hydrophobic Properties of Two-Part RTV Silicon Rubber

In this paper, the effect of adding aluminum trihydrate (ATH) on electrical (including dielectric constant, dielectric loss and strength, volume and surface resistivity) and hydrophobic properties of two-part room temperature volcanized (RTV) silicone rubber resin coatings were investigated. For this purpose, the RTV-ATH nanocomposite was made by physical mixing and its electrical and hydrophobic properties were compared with those of pure RTV. The results showed an increase in the dielectric constant (from 3.11 to 4.13), the dielectric loss (by ~ 0.06) and the dielectric strength (by ~ 4 KV/mm) of the RTV-ATH composite compared to the pure RTV. Moreover, ATH increased volume resistivity and reduced the surface resistivity of composite coatings. On the other hand, by spraying of coatings, no improvement in the hydrophobicity class of composite coating compared to pure RTV was observed and both samples were standardized in the HC2 standard class. Structural analysis of samples was performed by X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy and the presence of the main phases in them was confirmed.