Development of nano-structured icephobic surfaces based on plasma polymerization /

Abstract

Accumulated ice on exposed surfaces leads to operational difficulties and extensive maintenance for power transmission lines, antennas, aircraft, ships, and ground transportation vehicles.In the present study, the low pressure plasma polymerized Hexamethyldisiloxane (PP-HMDSO) film is deposited on aluminum surfaces to create a superhydrophobic coating with icephobic properties. Prior to the deposition of this low surface energy coating, aluminum surfaces were anodized or immersed in boiling water to make micro/nano structured surfaces.Plasma parameters were optimized in order to find the best optimum conditions for having high static contact angle and low contact angle hysteresis. Hence, the Grey-based Taguchi method was used as one of the Design of Experiment (DOE) techniques. The stability of coatings was studied under accelerated aging conditions such as UV degradation, immersion in distilled water and different pH solutions, and several icing/deicing cycles. It was observed that the PP-HMDSO coatings are quite stable against UV exposure and immersion in distilled water. However, the icephobicity of the PP-HMDSO coating deposited on the anodized aluminum decreased after fifteen icing/de-icing cycles.The stability of the developed coating was improved against several icing/de-icing cycles by increasing the deposition time of plasma polymerized coating from 15 to 25 minutes. The results showed that increasing the deposition time of plasma polymerization leads to decrease of the ice adhesion strength of coatings on anodized aluminum while it has no significant effect on the PP-HMDSO coating deposited on a water-treated aluminum surface. Finally, the superhydrophobic PP-HMDSO coating also provides anti-corrosion protection for the aluminum substrate.