A Transparent Photo/Electrothermal Composite Coating with Liquid-like Slippery Property for All-Day Anti-/De-Icing

Abstract

A photo/electrothermal surface can convert sunlight and electricity into heat to solve icing problems. The combination of active photo/electrothermal surfaces with passive slippery surfaces provides a highly efficient strategy for all-day anti/ deicing. However, the lack of transparency remains a primary impediment to the widespread application of these anti-icing measures in photovoltaics, windshields, and other fields. Herein, we report a bilayer transparent photo/electrothermal coating with a liquid-like slippery property for all-day anti/deicing. The prepared coating exhibits ultraslippery, low ice adhesion, and enhanced stability properties through covalent grafting of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes in a cross-linked skeleton of epoxy. Moreover, the coating demonstrates a visible transmittance of up to 77% and effectively absorbs ultraviolet and near-infrared light due to the addition of ultraviolet and infrared absorbers, resulting in a temperature increase under sun illumination. The bottom indium tin oxide layer is fabricated to provide the composite coating with electrothermal capability, so that it can achieve all-weather deicing. The coupling of photo/electrothermal and slippery properties can promote the rapid removal of grown ice in a short time. The slippery properties and their exceptional durability under mechanical, optical, and thermal conditions render the composite coatings highly promising for engineering applications.