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Anti-icing properties of superhydrophobic ZnO/PDMS composite coating

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Abstract

We present the excellent anti-icing performance for a superhydrophobic coating surface based on ZnO/polydimethylsiloxane (ZnO/PDMS) composite. The superhydrophobic ZnO/PDMS coating surface was prepared by a facile solution mixing, drop coating, room-temperature curing and surface abrading procedure. The superhydrophobic ZnO/PDMS composite coating possesses a water contact angle of 159.5° and a water sliding angle of 8.3° at room temperature (5 °C). The anti-icing properties of the superhydrophobic coating were investigated by continuously dropping cold-water droplets (about 0 °C) onto the pre-cooled surface using a home-made apparatus. The sample was placed at different tilting angle (0° and 10°) and pre-cooled to various temperatures (−5, −10 and −15 °C) prior to measure. The pure Al surface was also studied for comparison. It was found that icing accretion on the surface could be reduced apparently because the water droplets merged together and slid away from the superhydrophobic surface at all of the measuring temperatures when the surface is horizontally placed. In addition, water droplet slid away completely from the superhydrophobic surface at −5 and −10 °C when the surface is tilted at 10°, which demonstrates its excellent anti-icing properties at these temperatures. When the temperature decreased to −15 °C, though ice accretion on the tilted superhydrophobic coating surface could not be avoided absolutely, the amount of ice formed on the surface is very small, which indicated that the coating surface with superhydrophobicity could significantly reduce ice accumulation on the surface at very low temperature (−15 °C). Importantly, the sample is also stable against repeated icing/deicing cycles. More meaningfully, once the superhydrophobic surface is damaged, it can be repaired easily and rapidly.

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51263018 and 51463018), the S&T Supporting Plan of Jiangxi Province, Industrial Field (20133BBE50007), the xxx Basic Scientific Research Plan (A0520110xxx), and the S&T Supporting Plan of Jiangxi Province, Social Development Field (Grant No. 20122BBG70165).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, 330063, People’s Republic of China

    Chao Yang, Fajun Wang, Wen Li, Junfei Ou & Changquan Li

  2. Key Laboratory for Microstructural Control of Metallic Materials of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, 330063, People’s Republic of China

    Fajun Wang, Wen Li, Junfei Ou & Changquan Li

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Alidad Amirfazli

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  1. Chao Yang
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  2. Fajun Wang
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Correspondence to Fajun Wang.

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Yang, C., Wang, F., Li, W. et al. Anti-icing properties of superhydrophobic ZnO/PDMS composite coating. Appl. Phys. A 122, 1 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-015-9525-1

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