Abstract
Despite the remarkable advances in mitigating ice formation and accretion, however, no engineered anti-icing surfaces today can durably prevent frost formation, droplet freezing, and ice accretion in an economical and ecofriendly way. Herein, sustainable and low-cost electrolyte hydrogel (EH) surfaces are developed by infusing salted water into a hydrogel matrix for avoiding icing. The EH surfaces can both prevent ice/frost formation for an extremely long time and reduce ice adhesion strength to ultralow value (Pa-level) at a tunable temperature window down to −48.4 °C. Furthermore, ice can self-remove from the tilted EH surface within 10 s at −10 °C by self-gravity. As demonstrated by both molecular dynamic simulations and experiments, these extreme performances are attributed to the diffusion of ions to the interface between EH and ice. The sustainable anti-icing properties of EH can be maintained by replenishing in real-time with available ion sources, indicating the promising applications in offshore platforms and ships.
Highlights
Ice formation and accretion, via frost, snow, and freezing rain, results in severe challenges for infrastructures and transportation, including the collapse of grid infrastructures, failure of turbine blades, and traffic accidents.[1−3] These hazards can be divided into two aspects
The electrolyte hydrogel (EH) can be quickly replenished with the salted water, resulting in sustainable icephobicity
To demonstrate the anti-icing/icephobic properties of EHs, they were fabricated by infusing sodium chloride (NaCl) as a typical ion source into the poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogel, resulting in a solid compound with liquid inside
Summary
Ice formation and accretion, via frost, snow, and freezing rain, results in severe challenges for infrastructures and transportation, including the collapse of grid infrastructures, failure of turbine blades, and traffic accidents.[1−3] These hazards can be divided into two aspects. Ice formation on a surface (e.g., frost, rime) can cause change in the intrinsic surface properties, such as optical property and wettability.[4,5] Second, ice accretion on a surface can result in a loss of equipment efficiency and even the destruction of the infrastructure by the gravity of ice.[6,7] A general anti-icing strategy requires the surfaces to possess effective functionalities, namely, to truly prevent ice formation and/or to have low ice adhesion strength for easy removal of eventually formed ice. The current industrial practices, including mechanical, chemical, and thermal deicing methods, despite their effectiveness, are energy-intensive and/or environmentally unfriendly.[8] To solve the high cost of deicing-associated environmental challenges, various anti-icing or icephobic surfaces have been developed, including superhydrophobic surfaces (SHS),[9,10] interfacial slippage surfaces (ISS),[2,7,11] cracks/modulus-controlled low ice adhesion surfaces,[8,12,13] and lubricating surfaces.[14−21] They mitigate the hazards by delaying ice formation time and/or reducing ice adhesion strength on surfaces. Our strategy could potentially be used as a sustainable ice protection system in the offshore platforms and ships
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