Durable solid lubricant wind turbine blade anti-icing coating based on saturated chain polyhydrocarbons

Abstract

The use of anti-icing coatings and surfaces can be an effective solution to the problem of icing on infrastructure equipment such as wind turbines. Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) are receiving increasing attention due to their stability under droplet impact, high humidity tolerance, and low ice adhesion strength. Nevertheless, since SLIPS uses a sacrificial liquid lubricating fluid for deicing, improving the durability and economy of SLIPS is an important challenge at present. The present research aimed to prepare a cross-linked solid lubricant SLIPS using a simple coating method, and compare it with a SLIPS using liquid paraffin as a lubricant to study their wettability, impact resistance, freezing time, and ice adhesion strength. The results showed that the solid lubricant could bond well to the substrate material and that the surface presented hydrophobicity, which effectively repelled water droplets. Furthermore, the coating has good delayed icing properties and high durability in different environments. Compared with the SLIPS, which uses liquid lubricants, the solid lubricant has almost no lubricant loss after 8 h of rainwater impact, and it offers better environmental friendliness. After 15 icing/deicing tests, the ice adhesion strength still reaches a low 44.1 kPa. In addition, the stable performance and low price of the solid lubricant make the coating a good candidate for the development of a practical ice-repellent coating that can be used to solve the problem of ice accumulation on wind turbine blades in humid alpine regions.