Abstract
The build-up of ice on aircraft, bridges, oil rigs, wind turbines, electrical lines, and other surfaces exposed to cold environments diminishes their safe and effective operation. To engineer robust surfaces that reduce ice adhesion, it is necessary to understand the physics of what makes a surface icephobic (“ice-hating”) as well as the relationship between icephobicity and ice adhesion. Here we elucidate the molecular origin of icephobicity based on ice-surface interactions and characterize the correlation between material icephobicity and liquid wettability. This fundamental understanding of icephobic characteristics enables us to propose a robust design for topologically textured, icephobic surfaces. The design identifies the critical confinement length scale to sustain liquid water (as opposed to ice) in between roughness features and can reduce the strength of ice adhesion by over a factor of twenty-seven compared to traditional hydrophobic surfaces. The reduction in ice adhesion is due to the metastability of liquid water; as ambient ice cleaves from the textured surface, liquid water leaves confinement and freezes – a process which takes the system from a local energy minimum to a global energy minimum. This phase transition generates a detachment force that actively propels ambient ice from the surface.
Highlights
Ice formation presents a persistent problem in processes where structures are subject to cold conditions
The molecular origin of icephobicity arises from the rigid structure and reduced mobility of ice compared to liquid water at the interface with a material substrate, which results in a higher ice-substrate surface energy relative to the liquid-substrate interface
The critical confinement radius below which liquid water exists in thermodynamic equilibrium with the adjacent bulk ice phase can be derived theoretically as a function of the ambient conditions and surface wettability
Summary
Ice formation presents a persistent problem in processes where structures are subject to cold conditions. Liquid impregnated textured surfaces (LIS7) and slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS8) can decrease ice adhesion by introducing a lubricant that more favorably wets a textured surface than water. In these methods, the lubricant must be constantly replenished. Our approach to designing anti-icing surfaces is founded on texturing a surface so that it is energetically favorable for ambient ice to melt in between roughness. This ensures one of two cases will occur: either the ambient ice remains unimpaled by resting on top of the surface roughness, or the ambient ice coexists in www.nature.com/scientificreports/
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