Microstructure Enhances the Local Electric Field and Promotes Water Freezing

Ice-energy storage technology (IEST) can effectively improve the energy utilization rate and thus reduce carbon emissions, which is valuable and significant for achieving peak carbon dioxide emission and carbon neutrality. However, how to produce a large amount of ice with high efficiency and low energy consumption is the main bottleneck restricting the promotion of IEST. In this paper, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) substrates with different microstructures were prepared to investigate water freezing in an electrostatic field. The results show that the nucleation temperature of water is raised with the EF. Furthermore, at an EF of 10 kV/cm, a micro-triangular-prism substrate has the best effect on promoting nucleation. Moreover, the energy consumption during the freezing process is effectively reduced by a combination of applying EF and substrate modification. This work sheds new light on the design of IEST and has potential utilization in food cryopreservation.