Nanostructured thin films for icephobic applications

Icing on surfaces such as cables or high voltage insulators often leads to severe safety issues such as power outages in cold winter conditions. Conventional methods used to avoid such icing problems include mechanical deicing where the ice is scraped or broken and chemical deicing where deicers such as ethylene glycol are used. These methods have their own disadvantages of being destructive, expensive and time consuming. A better approach would be to prevent ice from forming in the first place by producing coating materials that are icephobic.;In the present research work, both concepts were studied by producing superhydrophobic nanorough low-epsilon dielectric surfaces on aluminum or alumina substrates. Superhydrophobic properties were achieved on surfaces of aluminum or alumina by creating a certain nanoroughness using chemical methods followed by a low surface energy coating of rf-sputtered Teflon or fluoroalkyl-silane (FAS-17) providing a water contact angle greater than 160°. The same behavior is reported even when the nanorough substrates were coated with dielectric thin films of ZnO (lower epsilon) or TiO 2, (higher epsilon). It is found that the superhydrophobic nanorough low surface energy surfaces are also icephobic and the presence of a low dielectric constant surface coating of Teflon (lowest epsilon; epsilon = 2) allows a considerable reduction of the ice adhesion strength even on non-nanotextured surfaces where ice would stick. The superhydrophobic nanorough low-epsilon surfaces also demonstrate morphological and chemical stability following the detachment of ice.;Superhydrophobic surfaces, which demonstrate high water-repellency due to the negligible contact area of water with those surfaces, are also expected to minimize the contact area of ice. A low dielectric constant surface is also expected to reduce the adhesion of ice due to the screening of mirror charges, thereby eliminating one of the strongest interaction forces---the electrostatic forces of attraction at the ice-surface interface.