In winter, the freezing phenomenon threatens the safety
of people
both in the work and home environments. At present, electrothermal
de-icing technology is widely used, but how to improve the portability
and anti-icing/de-icing efficiency of electrothermal de-icing technology
has attracted extensive attention. Here, we proposed a simple yet
universal flexible electrothermal hydrophobic self-lubricating tape
(EHT) with a multilayer structure including an electrothermal layer
and hydrophobic self-lubricating layer on a polyimide base. The resulting
tape surface exhibits a hydrophobic/electrothermal synergistic effect
on anti-icing and de-icing performance. Compared with the electrothermal
tape (ET) without a hydrophobic self-lubricating layer, the friction
coefficient and ice adhesion strength on the EHT surface were reduced
by 29% and 57%, respectively. In addition, the hydrophobic self-lubrication
effect of EHT can reduce the adhesion of supercooled water droplets
on its surface in an extremely harsh environment to allow more de-icing
easily under joule heat, and the different electrothermal power demand
in diverse surroundings can be controlled by adjustable voltage. More
importantly, the uniform EHT material can be prepared in a large area
using a traditional blade-coating process that gives a convenient
route to anti-icing in the engineering protection field.