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Understanding the ice adhesion mechanism is vital for efficient anti-icing. However, previous studies focused on the adhesion of already sintered ice-solid contacts. Here, we study the adhesion mechanism between preformed ice and solid surfaces. In particular, we investigate the initial stages of ice adhesion. We find that capillary bridges formed by the quasi-liquid layer on the ice surface enhance ice adhesion. The adhesion force showed a maximum around −2 °C. Our model indicates that the nano-scaled curvature of the capillary bridge gives rise to strong adhesion forces in the temperatures between −5 and 0 °C. The capillary bridge expands and consolidates over time, causing an increase of adhesion force. These findings provide new physical insights into the ice adhesion mechanism with strong implications to the development of water-repellent superhydrophobic coatings for efficient anti-icing of solid surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface contamination and friction result in significant energy losses with widespread environmental impact. In the present work, we developed fluorine-free super-slippery surfaces employing environmentally friendly and simple biofuel-based flame treatment of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Through a unique combination of processing parameters, highly transparent (>90%) and flexible films were engineered with omniphobic, anti-icing, and ultra-low friction properties. The processed films showed an extremely low tilting angle (<5°) and contact angle hysteresis (<4°) against different liquids, even under subzero temperatures. The coefficient of friction (COF) reduced to 0.01 after processing compared to ∼1 for PDMS. Extremely low ice adhesion of <20 kPa and enhanced freezing time ensured anti-icing behavior. The exceptional multidimensional traits were derived from the extremely stable silicone lubricant layer ensured by the hierarchically structured wrinkles. Wind tunnel tests showed that an air drag velocity of less than 0.5 m/s was sufficient to initiate droplet motion, highlighting low interfacial friction that leads to an anti-staining nature. Sustaining the self-cleaning and anti-staining characteristics, the processed surface showed utmost durability under different harsh conditions. The super-slippery surfaces with multifunctional characteristics fabricated through a sustainable route can be effectively used for various engineering and industrial applications.

Anti-icing gels inhibit ice formation and accretion; however, current iterations face prevalent drawbacks such as poor strength, weak substrate adhesion, and limited anti-icing properties. Herein, we propose a novel approach to address these challenges by developing a thermomechanical robust polyionic elastomer (PIE) with enhanced anti-icing properties. The PIE surface exhibits an icing delay time up to 5400 s and remains frost-free after exposure to -10 °C for 3.5 h, attributed to the inhibitory effect on ice formation by ions from ILs and the polyelectrolyte network. Moreover, the PIE exhibits remarkable anti-icing durability, with ice adhesion strengths below 35 kPa after undergoing 30 icing/deicing cycle tests at -20 °C. Following sandpaper abrasion (300 cycles), scratching, and heat treatment (100 °C, 16 h), the adhesion strength remains ca. 20 kPa, highlighting its resilience under various thermal and mechanical conditions. This exceptional durability is attributed to the low volatility of the IL and the robust ionic interactions within the PIE network. Furthermore, the PIE demonstrates favorable self-healing properties and strong substrate adhesion in both low-temperature and ambient environments, facilitated by the abundance of hydrogen bonds and electrostatic forces within PIE. This work presents an innovative approach to developing high-performance, durable, and robust anti-icing materials with potential implications across various fields.

Hydrophilic anti-icing coatings can be energy-effective passive solutions for combating ice accretion and reducing ice adhesion. However, their underlying mechanisms of action remain inferential and are ill-defined from a molecular perspective. Here, we systematically investigate the influence of the counterion identity on the shear ice adhesion strength to cationic polymer coatings having quaternary alkyl ammonium moieties as chargeable groups. Temperature-dependent molecular information on the hydrated polymer films is obtained using total internal reflection (TIR) Raman spectroscopy, complemented with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and ellipsometry. Ice adhesion measurements show a pronounced counterion-specific behavior with a sharp increase in adhesion at temperatures that depend on the anion identity, following the order Cl - < F - < SCN - < Br - < I - . Linked to the freezing of hydration water, the specific ordering results from differences in ion pairing and the amount of water present within the polymer film. Moreover, similar effects can be promoted by varying the cross-linking density in the coating while keeping the anion identity fixed. These findings shed new light on low ice adhesion mechanisms and may inspire novel approaches for improved anti-icing coatings.

In this work, we investigate the freezing behavior and ice adhesion properties of sessile drops on micropillared superhydrophobic surfaces (SHSs) with various sizes, which are of practical importance for anti/deicing. First of all, it is demonstrated that the recalescence is related only to the supercooling degree of drops but not to the geometrical parameters of micropillars. The freezing time of sessile drops first increases and then decreases with the area fraction of the SHSs, which demonstrates the nonmonotonic dependence of the icing time on the area fraction. Moreover, the influence of the geometrical parameters of the micropillars on the ice adhesion is discussed. With the decrease of the substrate temperature, the wetting state of the adhesive ice can be transformed from the Cassie ice to the Wenzel ice. For the Cassie ice, the adhesive force is proportional to the area fraction of the SHSs. Interestingly, experimental results show that there exist two interfacial debonding modes of the Wenzel ice: translational debonding and rotational debonding. Furthermore, it is found that the rotational debonding mode contributes to a much lower adhesive force between the ice and the micropillared surface compared to that of the translational debonding mode. By analyzing the critical interfacial energy release rate of the two modes, we deduce the threshold between the two modes, which is quantified as the geometrical parameters of the micropillars. In addition, quantitative relations between the geometrical parameters and the adhesion strengths of the two modes are also obtained. We envision that this work would shed new light on the design optimization of anti/deicing materials.

Icephobic coatings have been extensively studied for decades to overcome the potential damage associated with ice formation in various devices that are operated under harsh weather conditions. Superhydrophobic surface coatings have been applied for icephobic coating applications owing to their low surface energy. In this study, an icephobic coating of a self-formed superhydrophobic surface using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and SiO 2 powder was investigated. The effect of superhydrophobicity on icephobicity was determined by varying the experimental parameters. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) was added to the PDMS solution to improve the mechanical properties of the icephobic layer. The PDMS-PVDF solution also showed a self-formation behavior into a superhydrophobic surface. In addition, the icephobicity and mechanical properties of the PDMS-PVDF mixture coating improved because of the multilevel nanostructure formed by physical and chemical interactions between the mixture and SiO 2 powder. We believe that the proposed approach will be a suitable candidate for various practical applications of icephobicity and a model system to understand the correlation between superhydrophobicity and icephobicity.

Unwanted icing has major safety and economic repercussions on human activities, affecting means of transportation, infrastructures, and consumer goods. Compared to the common deicing methods in use today, intrinsically icephobic surfaces can decrease ice accumulation and formation without any active intervention from humans or machines. However, such systems often require complex fabrication methods and can be costly, which limits their applicability. In this study, we report the preparation and characterization of several slippery lubricant-infused porous surfaces (SLIPSs) realized by impregnating with silicone oil a candle soot layer deposited on double-sided adhesive tape. Despite the use of common household items, these SLIPSs showed anti-icing performance comparable to other systems described in the literature (ice adhesion < 20 kPa) and a good resistance to mechanical and environmental damages in laboratory conditions. The use of a flexible and functional substrate as tape allowed these devices to be stretchable without suffering significant degradation and highlights how these systems can be easily prepared and applied anywhere needed. In addition, the possibility of deforming the substrate can "allow" the application of SLIPS technology in mechanical ice removal methodologies, drastically incrementing their performance.

Highly amphiphobic (repelling both water and low surface tension liquids) and optically transparent surface treatments have widespread demand. By combining a rational growth of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with functionalization by environmentally safe, flexible alkyl groups, here we present surfaces with nanohierarchical morphology, comprising two widely differing nanoscale features. These nanohierarchical MOF films show excellent amphiphobicity. We further present three key features. First, we demonstrate the need to use flexible alkyl chains to achieve low drop sliding angles and self-cleaning. Second, our thin (∼200 nm) MOF films display excellent optical transparency and robustness. Third, the nanohierarchical morphology enables a unique combination of additional desirable properties, e.g., resistance to high-speed liquid impact (up to ∼35 m/s, Weber number >4 × 10 4 ), thermal stability up to 200 °C, scratch resistance, low ice adhesion for >10 icing/deicing cycles, stability in harsh acidic and basic environments, and capability to remove carcinogenic pollutants from water.

Ice adhesion on aerospace-relevant materials is both complex and not well understood. Measuring such adhesion and understanding the underlying physics involved require reliable testing techniques that can yield multifaceted data sets. The latter includes the surface morphology, that is, roughness, and its spatial correlation structure, resolving substrate-induced strain, and direct mechanical testing of adhesion. As part of a continuing investigation of ice adhesion on a relevant surface, we performed time-dependent stress ramps on aluminum surfaces. The temperature range explored, from -20 to -7 °C, allowed spontaneous icing and ice morphologies, namely, below or above -15 °C. Additionally, we characterized the spatial correlation surface roughness maps of the specimens. Our novel test protocol yields reproducible and high-precision results when compared with alternative methods reported throughout the literature. The stress-ramp test data using the proposed protocol show that the apparent average critical stress (proportional to the adhesion strength) depends on both stress-ramp rate and temperature. More specifically, the adhesion strength is higher for higher stress rates and increases with decreasing temperature. The stress-ramp test yields the full span of the time-dependent adhesive behavior of ice and particularly the upper bound. Additional stress-concentration analysis is needed to correct for this effect and thereby yield the critical stress rather than the average value produced by our procedure. The results in this work should aid to improve our understanding of ice adhesion mechanisms.

Various organogel materials with either a liquid or solid surface layer have recently been designed and prepared. In this work, amphiphilic organogels (AmOG) are innovatively developed from copolymer P(PDMS-r-PEG-r-GMA) and 2,2'-diaminodiphenyldisulfide via epoxy group addition reaction and then infiltrated with amphiphilic lubricants instead of traditional hydrophilic or hydrophobic lubricants. Because of synergistic effects of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments of amphiphilic lubricants, the AmOG surfaces showed high stability and excellent anti-icing performance. The delay in the freezing point of water was 1000 s on AmOG surfaces, which is 40 times longer as compared to the untreated hydrophilic glass surface. More importantly, low ice adhesion strength (15.1 kPa) was observed on AmOG which remained about 40 kPa even after 20 icing-deicing cycles. The novel amphiphilic organogels provide a new idea to prepare long-term anti-icing materials for practical applications.

It is known that smooth, hydrophobic solid surfaces exhibit low ice adhesion values, which have been shown to approach a lower ice adhesion strength limit (∼150 kPa) defined by the water receding contact angle. To overcome this limit, we have designed self-lubricating icephobic coatings by blending polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) amphiphilic copolymers into a polymer matrix. Such coatings provide low ice adhesion strength values (∼50 kPa) that can substantially reduce the lower bound of the ice adhesion strength achieved previously on smooth, hydrophobic solid surfaces. Different molecular mechanisms are responsible for the low ice adhesion strength attained by these two approaches. For the smooth hydrophobic surfaces, an increased water depletion layer thickness at the interface weakens the van der Waals' interactions between the ice and the polymeric substrate. For the self-lubricating icephobic coatings, the PEG component of the amphiphilic copolymer is capable of strongly hydrogen bonding with water molecules. The surface hydrogen-bonded water molecules do not freeze, even at substantial levels of subcooling, and therefore serve as a self-lubricating interfacial liquid-like layer that helps to reduce the adhesion strength of ice to the surface. The existence of nonfrozen water molecules at the ice-solid interface is confirmed by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.

A new approach for anti-icing materials was created to combat the effects of ice accretion and adhesion. The concept combines the strengths of individual characteristics for low ice adhesion based on elasticity, superhydrophobicity, and slippery liquid infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) for an optimal combination of high water repellency and ice-phobicity. This was achieved by replicating microtextures from a laser-irradiated aluminum substrate to an oil-infused polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer, the result of which is a flexible, superhydrophobic, and lubricated material. This design provides multiple strategies of icing protection through high water repellency to retard ice accretion and with elasticity and oil infusion for low ice adhesion in a single material. Studies showed that an infusion of silicone oils with viscosity at 100 cSt and below 8 wt % in PDMS solution is sufficient to reduce the ice shear strength to an average of 38 kPa while maintaining contact angles and roll-off angles of above 150° and below 10°, respectively. This ice-adhesion value is a ∼95% reduction from a bare aluminum surface and ∼30% reduction from a microtextured, superhydrophobic PDMS material without oil infusion. In addition, three-month aging studies showed that the wetting and ice-adhesion performance of this material did not significantly degrade.

The effects of ice formation and accretion on external surfaces range from being mildly annoying to potentially life-threatening. Ice-shedding materials, which lower the adhesion strength of ice to its surface, have recently received renewed research attention as a means to circumvent the problem of icing. In this work, we investigate how surface wettability and surface topography influence the ice adhesion strength on three different surfaces: (i) superhydrophobic laser-inscribed square pillars on copper, (ii) stainless steel 316 Dutch-weave meshes, and (iii) multiwalled carbon nanotube-covered steel meshes. The finest stainless steel mesh displayed the best performance with a 93% decrease in ice adhesion relative to polished stainless steel, while the superhydrophobic square pillars exhibited an increase in ice adhesion by up to 67% relative to polished copper. Comparisons of dynamic contact angles revealed little correlation between surface wettability and ice adhesion. On the other hand, by considering the ice formation process and the fracture mechanics at the ice-substrate interface, we found that two competing mechanisms governing ice adhesion strength arise on nonplanar surfaces: (i) mechanical interlocking of the ice within the surface features that enhances adhesion, and (ii) formation of microcracks that act as interfacial stress concentrators, which reduce adhesion. Our analysis provides insight toward new approaches for the design of ice-releasing materials through the use of surface topographies that promote interfacial crack propagation.

Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces were developed recently for icephobic surface applications. Perfluorinated liquids, silicone oil, hydrocarbon, and water were used as lubricating liquids to form a continuous layer on a suitable substrate to prevent icing. However, ice accretion performances of these surfaces have not been reported previously depending on the type of the lubricant. In this work, fluorinated aliphatics, polyalphaolefin, silicone oil, and decamethylcyclopenta siloxane were used as hydrophobic lubricants; water, ethylene glycol, formamide, and water-glycerine mixture were used as hydrophilic lubricants to be impregnated by hydrophobic polypropylene and hydrophilic cellulose-based filter paper surfaces; ice accretion, drop freezing delay time, and ice adhesion strength properties of these surfaces were examined; and the results were compared to those of the reference surfaces such as aluminum, copper, polypropylene, and polytetrafluoroethylene. An ice accretion test method was also developed to investigate the increase of the mass of formed ice gravimetrically by spraying supercooled water onto these surfaces at different subzero temperatures ranging between -1 and -5 °C. It was determined that hydrophilic solvents (especially a water-glycerine mixture) that impregnated hydrophilic porous surfaces would be a promising candidate for anti-icing applications at -2 °C and 56-83% relative humidity because ice accretion and ice adhesion strength properties of these surface decreased simultaneously in these conditions.

Sol-gel coatings with different roughness and surface energy were prepared on glass substrates. Methyl triethoxysilane (MTEOS), 3-Glycidyloxypropyl trimethoxysilane (GLYMO) and fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) were used to obtain a mechanically robust icephobic coating. Different amount of hydrophobic silica nano particles was added as fillers to introduce different roughness and surface energy to the coatings. The microstructure, roughness, and surface energy, together with elemental information and surface chemical state, were investigated at room temperature. The contact angle and sliding angle were measured at different temperatures to correlate the wetting behavior at low temperature with the anti-icing performance. The ice adhesion shear strength was measured inside an ice chamber using a self-designed tester. The factors influencing the ice adhesion were discussed, and the optimum anti-icing performance found in the series of coatings. It was found that lower surface energy leads to lower ice adhesion regardless of the roughness, while the roughness plays a more complicated role. The wetting behavior of the droplet on surface changes as temperature decreases. The anti-icing performance is closely related to the antiwetting property of the surfaces at subzero temperatures.

Understanding the function of nanoscale structure morphology in ice adhesion properties is important in deicing applications. The correlation between ice adhesion and nanowire morphology as well as the corresponding ice shear fracture mechanism are presented for the first time. Ice adhesion on nanowires was measured using a tangential ice-detaching instrument that was developed in-house. Stress analysis was performed using a COMSOL software. Nanowire surface shifted from Wenzel to Cassie transition and Cassie wetting states when the nanowire length was increased. Tangential ice-detaching forces were greater on the hydrophilic surface than those on the hydrophobic surface. Ice-ice internal shear fracture occurred on the ice and force probe contact area at the Wenzel state or on the ice and nanowire contact area at Cassie transition and Cassie state. Different lengths of nanowires caused different wetting states; thus, different fracture areas were formed, which resulted in different tangential ice-detaching forces. This paper presents a new way of tailoring surface ice adhesion via rational design of nanowire morphology with different wetting states.