Tailoring of the electrical properties of carbon black–silica coatings for de-icing applications

Electrical heating properties of carbon black–silica composite coatings have been studied for de-icing devices. Coatings are consolidated by spray deposition onto tile substrates and thermal treated in the temperature range of 300–500 °C in air atmosphere. The electrical properties of the coatings depend on the thermal treatment as for higher sintering temperatures the coatings are more resistive, and consequently the heating produced by the Joule effect is more significant. Therefore, it is possible to tailor the heating properties of the coatings by means the thermal treatment, achieving thin coatings with low electrical resistance (~5×10−4 Ω m), or coatings with higher resistivity (~5×10−3 Ω m) which produce thermal heating >70 °C with heating rate >0.13 °C s−1. This coating heating is determined using DC intensity–voltage curves and thermal infrared camera. The relationship between electrical power and temperature increasing showed a nearly linear dependence. The experimental results for these coatings allow their use in a wide range of functional applications, such as de-icing devices for aeronautics.