Dual-Functional Superhydrophobic Coating with Photothermal and Electrothermal Capabilities for Anti-icing and Deicing

Surface icing poses a great challenge to the safe operation and energy output of wind turbines in low-temperature freezing rain environments. To address the problem of ice cover, we designed a durable superhydrophobic MWCNTs@[F-SiO2/TiN] composite anti-icing coating with a double-layer structure, where carbon nanotubes serve as the bottom layer and titanium nitride and fluorinated silica particles serve as the top layer. The introduction of TiN nanoparticles enhances the solidification rheological uniformity of the dispersion system of silica, resulting in the formation of a dense surface with a uniform micro/nanostructure. Such a micro/nanostructure not only endows the coating with excellent superhydrophobicity, with a large contact angle of about 171° and a small rolling angle of less than 1°, but also significant anti-icing performance. The freezing time of the water droplet on this composite coating was significantly delayed to 730 s at -20 °C in the static anti-icing experiment, which is about twice that of the pure silica coating. The simulated dynamic freezing rain experiments also show that this superhydrophobic coating can effectively prevent ice formation on the surfaces of fan blades. This composite coating also exhibits excellent electrical and photothermal effects, derived from its special double-layer structure and the ability of the titanium nitride external filler to reduce heat dissipation. Under the combined action of photothermal and electrothermal effects, this composite coating demonstrates excellent deicing ability, achieving rapid deicing within 206 s, about 25.2% improvement in deicing efficiency compared to coatings without TiN. In addition, this composite coating also exhibits superior structural and performance stability, even after thermal cycling, sand and water impact, and prolonged immersion in acid/alkali corrosion. The current results suggest that the designed superhydrophobic coating with a double-layer structure is a very promising candidate for practical anti-icing and deicing applications.