A Passive Anti-icing Strategy Based on a Superhydrophobic Mesh with Extremely Low Ice Adhesion Strength

Although superhydrophobic materials have attracted much research interest in anti-icing, some controversy still exists. In this research, we report a cost-effective method used to verify the contribution of area fraction to ice adhesion strength. We tried to partially-embed silica nanoparticles into microscale fabrics of a commercial polyamide mesh. Then, the area fraction could be determined by altering the mesh size. Generally, the ice adhesion strength decreases as the area fraction decreases. An ice adhesion strength of similar to 1.9 kPa and a delayed freezing time of similar to 1048 s can be obtained. We attribute the low ice adhesion strength to the combination of superhydrophobicity and stress concentration. The superhydrophobicity prohibits the water from penetrating into the voids of the meshes, and the small actual contact area leads to stress concentration which promotes interfacial crack propagation. Moreover, our superhydrophobic mesh simultaneously exhibits a micro-nano hierarchical structure and a partially-embedded structure. Therefore, the as-prepared superhydrophobic mesh retained the icephobicity after 20 icing/deicing cycles, and maintained its superhydrophobicity even after 60 sandpaper-abrasion cycles and a 220 degrees C thermal treatment.

Automated summary

This research investigates the effect of area fraction on ice adhesion strength by partially embedding silica nanoparticles into microscale fabrics and altering mesh size. It is found that ice adhesion strength decreases as area fraction decreases. The combination of superhydrophobicity and stress concentration are attributed to the low ice adhesion strength observed in the experiments.