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The oil-impregnated paper, as a vital part in the oil-paper insulation system, serves as the main insulation medium in converter transformer suffering various electric fields. However, the accumulated surface charge on the paper would accelerate the degradation of insulation system and may lead to surface flashover. Direct-fluorination is a method to change the chemical components of polymer matrix thus could affect the surface property of the dielectric material without the alternation of bulk property. This paper presents a method to modify the surface structure of the paper applied in transformers. The paper used in the experiment was treated using the F2/N2 mixture with a volume fraction of 10% for the F2 gas at a pressure of 0.05 MPa in a reaction vessel for 2, 5, 10 and 15 min, respectively. The chemical elements, functional group and physical morphology of the paper before and after modification were measured with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX), attenuated total reflection infrared (ATR-IR) and scanning electron micrographs (SEM), respectively. Surface and volume resistivity of the fluorinated paper were measured. Furthermore, the surface charge property of the oil-impregnated paper was measured under various positive and negative voltages. Obtained results showed that the fluorination had an obvious influence on the chemical property and surface structure of the paper leading to the reduction of surface and volume resistivity. The treatment was shown to reduce the initial potential and cause acceleration in charge decay process. The trap distribution of the paper surface presented alternation as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]