A sunlight-responsive and robust anti-icing/deicing coating based on the amphiphilic materials

Ice accretion on airplane surfaces, power lines, or wind turbines can cause operational difficulties and disastrous events. Great efforts have been made to develop environmentally-friendly anti-icing or deicing surfaces over the last several decades, but a high-efficient, robust, and energy-saving surface for both anti-icing and deicing still remains a challenge. Herein, a sunlight-responsive and robust anti-icing/deicing coating is designed by integrating photothermogenic nanocarbon fibers with an amphiphilic material, which is based on hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and hydrophilic polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) segments. The resultant coating represents an excellent and energy-saving anti-icing/deicing performance: a 34-fold increase of freezing delay time compared with control steel and ~18 KPa of ice adhesion strength enabling easy removal by a natural wind action, attributable to the intrinsic material properties (the ability of PVP to depress water freezing point and the low surface energy of PDMS). Moreover, nanocarbon fibers can further reduce the ice adhesion strength and endow the coating with a rapidly sunlight-sensitive photothermal deicing performance (up to 10 °C/min), presenting the superiority of outdoor applications especially for high-altitude equipment and vehicles. After 30 icing-deicing cycle, simulated acid rain (pH = 0) scouring, sand dropping, and 200 abrasion cycle tests, this coating also exhibits an extraordinary durability and robustness. This work makes a promising anti-icing and deicing coating for a large-scale operation and practical applications in particular outdoors.