Glycerine as a cap dielectric?

To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Glycerine as a cap dielectric?
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 07:14:56 -0500
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

----------
From:  Harri Suomalainen [SMTP:haba-at-cc.hut.fi]
Sent:  Friday, April 17, 1998 12:51 PM
To:  tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject:  Re: Glycerine as a cap dielectric?

>From:  Matthew Mills [SMTP:mattmills-at-mindless-dot-com]
>Hi I was just thinking....(Woah Dangerous!!!) and have heard that

Well, it is combustible liquid but not too easily igniting. No other
dangers should be involved.

>glycerine makes a good dielectric as its dielectric constant is about
>60, would this be any good for caps? or does it have extremely high loss
>factors?

I have no exact values at hand but as a chemists educated guess I would
expect loss-factor to be very high. The reason behind this is the polar
nature of the molecule which will make it turn here and there and has
finite friction. (A short note with plenty of simplifications). Generally
that
thing is actually fairly easy to guess more or less right.

Go for polyethylene/polypropylene or teflon to make low-loss caps.

--
Harri Suomalainen     mailto:haba-at-cc.hut.fi

We have phone numbers, why'd we need IP-numbers? - a person in a bus