Microporous metallic scaffolds supported liquid infused icephobic construction

Mengjuan Wu; Jie Wang; Sanliang Ling; Richard Wheatley; Xianghui Hou

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.034

Microporous metallic scaffolds supported liquid infused icephobic construction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Mar 15:634:369-378. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.034. Epub 2022 Dec 11.

Authors

Mengjuan Wu¹, Jie Wang², Sanliang Ling¹, Richard Wheatley³, Xianghui Hou⁴

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Institute of Technology, Nanjing 211167, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Structural Materials and Application Technology, Nanjing 211167, China.
³ School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom.
⁴ Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom. Electronic address: xianghui.hou@outlook.com.

PMID: 36542967
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.034

Abstract

Hypothesis: Ice accretion on component surfaces often causes severe impacts or accidents. Liquid-infused surfaces (LIS) have drawn much attention as icephobic materials for ice mitigation in recent years due to their outstanding icephobicity. However, the durability of LIS constructions remains a big challenge, including mechanical vulnerability and rapid depletion of lubricants. The practical applications of LIS materials are significantly restrained, and the full potential of LIS for ice prevention has yet to be demonstrated.

Experiments: A universal approach was proposed to introduce microporous metallic scaffolds in the LIS construction to increase the applicability and durability, and to prompt the potential of LIS for ice mitigation. Microporous Ni scaffolds were chosen to integrate with polydimethylsiloxane modified by silicone oil addition.

Findings: The new LIS construction demonstrated significantly improved durability in icing/de-icing cyclic test, and it also offered a solution for the rapid oil depletion by restraining the deformation of the matrix material. Low ice adhesion strength could be maintained via a micro-crack initiation mechanism. The results indicated that the multi-phase LIS construction consisting of microporous Ni scaffolds effectively addressed the shackles of the icephobicity deterioration of LIS materials, confirming a new design strategy for the R&D of icephobic surfaces.

Keywords: Icephobicity; Liquid-infused surfaces; Mechanical durability; Ni scaffolds; Oil infusion.