Fabrication of anti-icing/de-icing superhydrophobic composite coating based on hydrangea-like ZnO@CuS

Abstract

Considering the destructive effect of ice accumulation on material surfaces, substantial attention has been devoted to fabricating anti-icing superhydrophobic coatings. However, most superhydrophobic coatings cannot deice. Herein, a special nanofiller was designed and fabricated as the main component of a superhydrophobic coating for simultaneously improving its anti-icing and de-icing performance. Firstly, hydrangea-like ZnO@CuS (H–ZnO@CuS) was synthesized via a precipitation process at room temperature. Then, a superhydrophobic composite coating composed of epoxy resin (ER), H–ZnO@CuS, and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was fabricated on the Al surface via a layer-by-layer spraying process. The results demonstrate that, after 100 tape peeling tests and 40 abrasion cycles, the hydrophobicity of the ER/H–ZnO@CuS/PDMS composite coating remains basically unchanged, and its water contact angle (WCA) can still reach 156.3°, thus exhibiting excellent superhydrophobicity and mechanical durability. More importantly, the composite coating displays outstanding anti-icing and de-icing performance, which can prolong the static freezing time of water droplets from 3 to 13 min at −15 °C and prevent the formation of ice when water is dripped continuously for 20 min at −10 °C. Additionally, the melting time of ice at −15 °C can be shortened from 5 to 1 min due to the photothermal behavior of H–ZnO@CuS. Therefore, this work presents a promising strategy to endow coatings with simultaneous anti-icing and de-icing performance. This approach can not only improve the current efficiency of de-icing/anti-icing processes but also reduce the energy consumption by effectively reducing or eliminating the accumulation of water on the structure surface before it freezes. • A special hydrangea-like composite nano-fillers as the main component of superhydrophobic coating was fabricated. • The composite coating exhibited superhydrophobicity with water contact angle of 163.5 ± 1.9° and slide angle of 3.1 ± 0.2°. • Photothermal micro/nano structure endows coating with good anti-icing and de-icing performances simultaneously • The de-icing process of ice bead on the superhydrophobic coating at −15 °C completed within 1 min by photothermal effect. • This method provides new ideas for the preparation of anti-icing and de-icing coatings for practical outdoors applications.