Self-Deicing Electrolyte Hydrogel Surfaces with Pa-level Ice Adhesion and Durable Antifreezing/Antifrost Performance

Abstract

Despite the remarkable advances in mitigating ice formation and accretion, however, no engineered anti-icing surfaces today can durably prevent frost formation, droplet freezing, and ice accretion in an economical and ecofriendly way. Herein, sustainable and low-cost electrolyte hydrogel (EH) surfaces are developed by infusing salted water into a hydrogel matrix for avoiding icing. The EH surfaces can both prevent ice/frost formation for an extremely long time and reduce ice adhesion strength to ultralow value (Pa-level) at a tunable temperature window down to −48.4 °C. Furthermore, ice can self-remove from the tilted EH surface within 10 s at −10 °C by self-gravity. As demonstrated by both molecular dynamic simulations and experiments, these extreme performances are attributed to the diffusion of ions to the interface between EH and ice. The sustainable anti-icing properties of EH can be maintained by replenishing in real-time with available ion sources, indicating the promising applications in offshore platforms and ships.

Understanding the Solid–Ice Interface Mechanism on the Hydrophobic Nano-Pillar Structure Epoxy Surface for Reducing Ice Adhesion

“…Since the secret of the lotus leaf was discovered [8], many researchers proposed superhydrophobic materials as the pivotal point in the search for a passive anti-icing regime [9], as the air layer between the droplet and substrate could block the heat transfer in freezing conditions and result in an icing delay effect [10][11][12][13][14]. Moreover, various anti-icing/icephobic surfaces were built by imitating natural structures such as the lotus and nepenthes [5,15] to change the interface state by introducing an air layer and a lubricating layer on micro-and nano-structure surfaces [16][17][18][19]. On this basis, researchers have successively fabricated various hierarchically structured superhydrophobic coatings with excellent anti-icing performance [14,20,21].…”

Designing Self-Sustainable Icephobic Layer by Introducing a Lubricating Un-Freezable Water Hydrogel from Sodium Polyacrylate on the Polyolefin Surface

“…During this extension, sodium ion of H-PAAS diffused into the lubricant hydrogel layer. The more Na + of polyelectrolyte proliferated in the lubricant hydrogel layer, the lower the freezing point due to the hydration [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. Notably, the lubricant hydrogel layer suppressed the heteronuclear crystallization, resulting in a much lower crystallization temperature and a longer icing time during the cooling process.…”

Zwitterionic Nanogels and Microgels: An Overview on Their Synthesis and Applications

“…According to the antifreezing and antifogging mechanism, the hydrophilic type coating materials have widely been researched in recent years. [ 171 ] In principle, due to the low contact angle between the water droplet and hydrophilic substrate, the surface hydration layer resists further water condensation or fog formation. In this sense, zwitterionic polymers have been reported in literature, owing to their superhydrophilicity because of the presence of both cation and anion on their backbone.…”