Fabrication of a durable anti-icing composite coating based on polyurethane elastomer and silica nanoparticles

Abstract

In order to design and fabricate hydrophobic, durable and anti-icing coating for aircraft, a polyurethane elastomer matrix was hydrophobically modified and incorporated with fluorinated SiO2 nanoparticles to prepare a micro/nanostructured coating. The micro/nanostructured coating with low surface energy displayed significantly improved mechanical properties and hydrophobicity, which exhibited the water contact angle of 162° as well as the sliding angle of 2°. The coating is highly stretchable, which could sustain large-scale extension, and exhibits tensile strength and elongation at break up to 16.22 MPa and 385 %, respectively. Furthermore, the coating exhibited a remarkably weak ice adhesion strength of 14.33 kPa, on which the accumulative ice is prone to fall off under natural wind and its own weight. The coating sustained long-term superhydrophobic properties and anti-icing performance even after 1000 abrasion cycles. The proposed method for the production of scalable superhydrophobic coating is cost-effective and can be applied in aerospace and automotive anti-icing systems.

Stretchable Superhydrophobic Surfaces: From Basic Fabrication Strategies to Applications

“…Recently, Yu et al introduced a robust anti-icing composite surface based on modified PU elastomer and silica nanoparticles (SiO 2 ) [112]. Initially, fluorinated silica nanoparticles (SiO 2 -F) were blended with modified PU elastomer (PUE) at a SiO 2 -F concentration of 8 wt%.…”

Enhanced mechanical and tribological properties of epoxy‐based coatings by in‐situ synthesized silicon dioxide nanoparticles

“…The enhancement of scratch resistance can be attributed to the increased bonding strength between the nanoparticles and epoxy matrix. 48 The Si-O-R functional groups were hydrolyzed into silanol groups (Si-OH) during the reaction progress, and then produced the silicon- oxygen-silicon (Si-O-Si) bonds through hydrolytic condensation, which provided the composite coatings with excellent mechanical strength. 49 In addition, the silicon dioxide nanoparticles with amino group were chemically reacted with the epoxy resin, which enhances the interface bonding strength between the inorganic nanoparticles and the epoxy resin, thus effectively improved the scratch resistance.…”