Ice repellency behaviour of superhydrophobic surfaces: Effects of atmospheric icing conditions and surface roughness

This paper presents a novel view on ice repellency of superhydrophobic surfaces in terms of contact angle hysteresis, surface roughness and icing condition. Ice repellency performance of two superhydrophobic silicone rubber nanocomposite surfaces prepared via spin coating and spray coating methods were investigated. High contact angle (>150°), low contact angle hysteresis (<6°) and roll-off property were found for both spin and spray coated samples. The results showed a significant reduction of ice adhesion strength on the spin-coated sample while ice adhesion strength on the spray-coated sample was found to be unexpectedly similar to that of the uncoated sample. Indeed, this research study showed that the icephobic properties of a surface are not directly correlated to its superhydrphobicity and that further investigations, like taking icing condition effect into account, are required. It was found that icephobic behaviour of the spray coated sample improved at lower levels of liquid water content (LWC) and under icing conditions characterized by smaller water droplet size.