Superhydrophobic microstructures for better anti-icing performances: open-cell or closed-cell?

Based on geometrical characteristics, all surface microstructures are categorized into two types: closed-cell and open-cell structures. Closed-cell structures are well-known to have more stable and durable superhydrophobicity at room temperatures. However, in low-temperature environments where massi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials horizons 2023-01, Vol.1 (1), p.29-22
Main Authors: Wang, Lizhong, Jiang, Guochen, Tian, Ze, Chen, Changhao, Hu, Xinyu, Peng, Rui, Zhang, Hongjun, Fan, Peixun, Zhong, Minlin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adhesion
Air pockets
Air Pressure
Cell Membrane
Cold Temperature
Deicing
Design optimization
Durability
Fabaceae
Frost resistance
Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
Hydrophobic surfaces
Hydrophobicity
Icephobicity
Ideal gas
Low temperature environments
Microstructure
Room temperature
Ultrafast lasers
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Summary:Based on geometrical characteristics, all surface microstructures are categorized into two types: closed-cell and open-cell structures. Closed-cell structures are well-known to have more stable and durable superhydrophobicity at room temperatures. However, in low-temperature environments where massive environmentally induced physical changes emerge, whether closed-cell surfaces can maintain good anti-icing performances has not yet been confirmed, and thus how to design optimal superhydrophobic anti-icing microstructures is rarely reported. Here, we apply an ultrafast laser to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces with tunable patterned micro-nanostructures from a complete closed-cell to different ratios and to a complete open-cell. We discover that droplets on closed-cell structures completely degrade to the high-adhesion Wenzel state after icing and melting cycles while those on the open-cell structures well recover to the original Cassie-Baxter state. We propose an improved ideal gas model to clarify the mechanisms that the decreased air pocket pressure and the air dissolution on closed-cell structures induce easy impalement during icing and the difficult recovery during melting, paving the way for optimizing the anti-icing structure design. The optimized open-cell surfaces exhibit over 33 times lower ice adhesion strengths (1.4 kPa) and long-term icephobic durability (
ISSN:2051-6347
2051-6355
DOI:10.1039/d2mh01083f