Preparation and characterization of ZnO nanoparticles incorporated by mechanical milling into cellulose for electrical insulator applications

In this work, a novel composite material based on ZnO nanoparticles incorporated into cellulose polymers has been designed and prepared. For this purpose, the ex-situ prepared ZnO nanoparticles were dispersed into cellulose using mechanical milling. The effect of the percentage of ZnO nanoparticles doping into the prepared composite was studied. Dielectric properties of composite, as influenced by the compaction density, the level of ZnO nanoparticles doping into cellulose, and the temperature, were characterized using a liquid test fixture, a precision inductance capacitance and resistance meter at a radio frequency ranging from 5 to 30 MHz. It has been shown that ε and ε respectively correspondent to the dielectric constant and the loss factor of composite were affected by level of ZnO nanoparticles, compaction density and temperature of the samples. Both ε and ε increased with increasing the temperature and the level of ZnO nanoparticles, but decreased with increasing the frequency.