Delaying Ice formation using Passive De-Icing Materials

The menace of ice formation on functional surfaces is ubiquitous in our daily life, having a deleterious effect on many industries entailing gargantuan economic damage yearly. Over the years, despite remarkable progress in the fields of microfabrication and surface chemistry, majority of the engineered surfaces have been futile in passively curbing icing under extreme environs of high humidity and freezing temperatures; with the modern industry still relying primarily on energy and cost intensive active de-icing techniques. Motivated by this and conducting research on material characterization and surface engineering, we have developed a novel class of passive icephobic materials. On testing these materials in a high humidity and low substrate temperature atmosphere, significantly delayed ice formation was demonstrated as compared to superhydrophobic surfaces; with some of these materials exhibiting sustained ice-free operation for more than 90 hours. These materials on being infused into microtextured hydrophilic surfaces and tested in a humid and frigid atmosphere, outperformed the control superhydrophobic surfaces by 2-4 times. The encouraging ice mitigation results of these novel materials have the potential for the design-fabrication of durable industrial de-icing coatings.