Understanding the anti-icing property of nanostructured superhydrophobic aluminum surface during glaze ice accretion

Abstract

Ice accumulation on power transmission lines has been a vital problem for power systems in cold regions. In this paper, the anti-icing property of the as-prepared superhydrophobic (SHP) surface on the aluminum substrate in glaze ice was studied in an artificial climate chamber. Results show that the as-prepared SHP surface demonstrates excellent anti-icing property with only 24.65% of the entire surface froze after spraying for 60 min. The nano-scale structures and the HDTMS molecule both contributed to the superhydrophobicity. The reason for the excellent anti-icing property of the as-prepared SHP surface can be ascribed to two reasons: on the one hand, the nanoscale structures can effectively help maintain the superhydrophobicity of the as-prepared SHP surface at low temperatures, which inhibited the frosting process for over 210 min at −5°C and −10 °C. On the other hand, the as-prepared SHP surface can completely repel the impacting millimeter-level cooled water droplets or reducing the critical diameter of micro-scale droplets in glaze ice leading to a reduction of ice accumulation. The nanostructured ZnO textures significantly helped improve the ability to resist frost and ice accumulation on the aluminum surface, which has a good prospect on power transmission lines against ice formation.