Improving Anti-Icing and De-Icing Performances via Thermal-Regulation with Macroporous Xerogel

Abstract

The accumulation of ice in winter has brought many problems in industrial production and everyday life, and how to prevent icing or remove ice rapidly has aroused great attention from researchers in recent years. In this work, we demonstrated a strategy of using a superhydrophobic photothermal and thermal isolation macroporous xerogel (PMX) to delay icing and remove ice efficiently under faint sunlight irradiation. An oriented macroporous xerogel was prepared by an ice templating method, and multi-walled carbon nanotubes acting as the photothermal genesis component under sunlight irradiation were introduced into the xerogel. After fluorination, the PMX presented a robust water repellency and delayed icing. More importantly, numerous macropores in the PMX matrix acted as the thermal barrier that can restrict heat transmission to surroundings at maximum, which guarantees efficient anti-icing and de-icing in low temperature. Water on the PMX surface can never freeze at −30 °C under 0.25 kW/m2 (“0.25 sun”) sunlight irradiation. The outdoor experiment also has confirmed the availability of PMX in a natural winter environment. The PMX integrated with thermogenesis and thermo-isolation functions provides a new route for highly efficient anti-icing and de-icing.

Novel Intrinsic Self‐Healing Poly‐Silicone‐Urea with Super‐Low Ice Adhesion Strength

“…[13,14] Moreover, the hydrophobic materials-based low ice adhesion coatings are often easily damaged resulting in lost de-icing properties. [15,16] It is believed that to achieve long-time de-icing properties of these low ice adhesion coatings, mechanical durability, and smart function should be integrated into the material, [17,18,19,20,21,22] which are not solved until now. One effective strategy to solve this problem is to introduce a self-healing function into the de-icing materials.…”

Electro‐/Photo‐Thermal Promoted Anti‐Icing Materials: A New Strategy Combined with Passive Anti‐Icing and Active De‐Icing

“…[119] To verify the outdoor performance (i.e., −12 °C), they also found that accumulated snow on the PMX can be completely melted after 8 min under the sunlight irradiation of 0.55 sun (Figure 8c2-c4). [119] In real outdoor application, the self-cleaning property of photo-thermal promoted AIM is important for photo-thermal efficiency, for the contaminants (i.e., organic liquids and oils) can block and scatter the sunlight. [12,146,147] Wu et al proved that the photo-thermal effect under 1 sun can separately increase the temperatures of silica shell coated candle soot (SCS) to 14.5 °C and superhydrophobic PDMS brushes grafted SCS (PSCS) to 50 °C, which enhances the removal of contaminants by surface superhydrophobicity (Figure 8d1,d2).…”

“…Compared with electro‐thermal heat techniques, solar energy as the renewable source is free and sustainable from nature. Recently, researchers investigated sun light (or artifical light) to replace electric power, and developed photo‐thermal promoted AIM by combining passive AIM (i.e., SHSs, [ 106 ] lubricating surfaces, [ 107–110 ] and other icephobic surfaces [ 111,112 ] ) ( Figure ) with active photo‐thermal heating with the help of various absorbers (i.e., Fe 3 O 4 , [ 107,108,113–115 ] candle soot, [ 12,116 ] carbon nanotubes (CNTs), [ 89,90,112,117–126 ] carbon nanofibers, [ 111 ] CNTs/Fe 3 O 4 @poly(cyclotriphosphazene‐co‐4,4′‐sulfonyldiphenol) (PZS), [ 127 ] cermet, [ 32 ] I 2 , [ 128 ] SiC, [ 129 ] polypyrrole (PPy), [ 98 ] melanin, [ 130 ] CNTs/SiO 2 , [ 131 ] Fe/candle soot, [ 106 ] Fe/Cu, [ 132 ] titanium nitride (TiN), [ 133,134 ] Ti 2 O 3 , [ 135 ] Au/TiO 2 , [ 66,136 ] Au/SiO 2 , [ 137 ] reduced graphene oxide (rGO), [ 138 ] graphite, [ 139 ] SiO 2 /CuFeMnO 4 , [ 140 ] MXene, [ 141 ] and black engineered aluminum [ 142,143 ] ) (See Table 3 ). Generally, the absorption capacity of these absorbers differs from one to another, and the photo‐thermal effect usually occurs under different light wavelengths, such as solar radiation, [ 107 ] near infrared irradiation, [ 89,108,118,129 ] and infrared irradiation (See Table 3).…”

“…Compared with electro-thermal heat techniques, solar energy as the renewable source is free and sustainable from nature. Recently, researchers investigated sun light (or artifical light) to replace electric power, and developed photo-thermal promoted AIM by combining passive AIM (i.e., SHSs, [106] lubricating surfaces, [107][108][109][110] and other icephobic surfaces [111,112] ) (Figure 7) with active photo-thermal heating with the help of various absorbers (i.e., Fe 3 O 4 , [107,108,[113][114][115] candle soot, [12,116] carbon nanotubes (CNTs), [89,90,112,[117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126] carbon nanofibers, [111] CNTs/Fe 3 O 4 @ poly(cyclotriphosphazene-co-4,4′-sulfonyldiphenol) (PZS), [127] cermet, [32] I 2 , [128] SiC, [129] polypyrrole (PPy), [98] melanin, [130] CNTs/SiO 2 , [131] Fe/candle soot, [106] Fe/Cu, [132] titanium nitride (TiN), [133,134] Ti 2 O 3 , [135] Au/TiO 2 , [66,136] Au/SiO 2 ,…”

“…Copyright 2022, Elsevier; Panel (b1-b3) adapted with permission [116]. Copyright 2021, American Chemical Society; Panel (c1-c4) adapted with permission [119]. Copyright 2021, American Chemical Society; Panel (d1-d2) adapted with permission [12].…”