Robust highly conductive fabric with fluorine-free healable superhydrophobicity for the efficient deicing of outdoor’s equipment

Abstract

Conductive materials with superhydrophobicity surfaces emerge a superior application potential in outdoor’s equipment deicing field due to their excellent electrothermal heating capacity. However, it is still a challenge to develop robust conductive fabric with self-healing superhydrophobic surface for the application in outdoor harsh environments, especially using environment-friendly raw materials and facile modification methods. In this paper, the durable and washable conductive fabric (S-SHCNF) with desired electrothermal performance was fabricated through the design of healable superhydrophobic micro/nano rough surface. The introduction of nonfluorinated shell-core nanospheres (SiO2 @NH2-PDMS) with self-healing superhydrophobicity improved anti-corrosion and rapid restoration of S-SHCNF. The contact angle of the S-SHCNF could reach 158.2° while the sliding contact angle was 2.7°, endowing the materials with excellent anti-corrosion performance. As expected, the superhydrophobicity and conductivity of S-SHNCF kept unchanged when it has been exposed to strong acid, alkali and salt. Meanwhile, the S-SHCNF still maintained superhydrophobicity (151.5°) and conductivity (0.96 Ω·sq−1) after 800 cyclic frictions with the self-healing property. Thanks to the electrothermal performance from the Ag conductive dense layer, the S-SHCNF could remove ice thoroughly in 18 s with 5 V voltage. Therefore, the S-SHCNF with excellent durability and anticorrosive performance, could enlarge its application in outdoor deicing application especially in harsh environments.