Liquid layer generators for excellent icephobicity at extremely low temperatures

Abstract

Promising progress in the field of icephobicity has been made in the recent years. However, a majority of the reported icephobic surfaces rely on static mechanisms, and they maintain low ice adhesion on surfaces at extreme temperatures (as low as −60 °C), which is highly challenging. Dynamic anti-icing surfaces, which can melt ice or change the ice–substrate interfaces from the solid to liquid phase after the formation of ice, serve as a viable alternative. In this study, liquid layer generators (LLGs), which can release ethanol to the ice–solid interface and convert the ice–substrate contact from the solid–solid mode to the solid–liquid–solid mode, were introduced. Excellent icephobicity on surfaces with an ethanol lubricating layer was found to withstand extremely low temperatures (−60 °C), which was proven by both molecular dynamics simulations and experiments. Two prototypes of LLGs, one by packing ethanol inside and the other by storing replenishable ethanol below the substrate, were fabricated. These LLGs could constantly release ethanol for a maximum of 593 days without source replenishment. Both these prototypes exhibited super-low ice adhesion strengths of 1.0–4.6 kPa and 2.2–2.8 kPa at −18 °C. For select samples, by introducing an interfacial ethanol layer, the ice adhesion strength on the same surfaces decreased in an unprecedented manner from 709.2–760.9 kPa to 22.1–25.2 kPa at a low temperature of −60 °C.