Research progress on application of superhydrophobic materials in anti-icing and de-icing technology

Icing and frosting bring many disadvantages to people's life. Ice accumulation will affect the flight safety of aircraft, delay the rocket launch mission, deform transmission lines and power networks, cause transportation obstacles, and even produce major economic problems and personal safety problems. Conventional anti-icing and de-icing methods are often costly, inefficient, or environmentally harmful. Superhydrophobic technology, which uses the intrinsic properties of materials to delay icing and significantly reduces the ice adhesion between ice and substrate, is a promising anti-icing and deicing technology. In this paper, firstly, the wetting phenomenon of solid surface and ice nucleation mechanism are introduced. It should be indicated that superhydrophobic surfaces face many problems such as the its wettability can be changed with decreasing the temperature and increasing the relative humidity, poor stability and mechanical robustness, and lack of facile and large-scale fabrication methods. Secondly, the research progress of superhydrophobic anti-icing and de-icing materials, stable and mechanically robust superhydrophobic surfaces, fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces and multifunctional anti-icing and de-icing superhydrophobic materials are reviewed and analyzed. Finally, many applications of anti-icing and de-icing superhydrophobic materials in practical engineering are concluded and summarized. On this basis, the development trends and prospects of anti-icing and de-icing superhydrophobic materials are discussed. Copyright ©2022 Acta Materiae Compositae Sinica. All rights reserved.