Construction and Photothermal De-icing Capability of Snowflake-like Micro/nano Superhydrophobic Coatings

ZHANG Shengwei; YANG Ruifeng; ZHAO Zhenyu; ZHANG Jie

doi:10.16490/j.cnki.issn.1001-3660.2025.16.017

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Surface Technology ›› 2025, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (16) : 202-211. DOI: 10.16490/j.cnki.issn.1001-3660.2025.16.017

Surface Functionalization

Construction and Photothermal De-icing Capability of Snowflake-like Micro/nano Superhydrophobic Coatings

ZHANG Shengwei^*, YANG Ruifeng, ZHAO Zhenyu, ZHANG Jie

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Abstract

The ice cover of transmission line will seriously impact on safe operation of power grid under the extreme weather conditions. This article aims to solve the ice-covering problem by constructing a superhydrophobic coating with photo-thermal de-icing capability on the cable surface. The coating is prepared by spraying PDMS solutions loaded with graphite powder (GP) and titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles onto the cable surface with a spray gun and subsequent scorching treatment. The addition of photothermal materials (GP) makes the coating possess the ability to remove ice quickly under sunlight. The cauterizing treatment and the addition of TiO₂ with lower surface energy make the coating possess hydrophobicity. A scanning electron microscopy and an energy dispersive spectrometry are used to analyze the microcosmic appearance and composition of the coating. X-ray diffractometry is used to analyze the phase constitutions. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to analyze the valence state. A contact angle meter, a ultra-high-speed camera, and a thermal imager are utilized to evaluate the superhydrophobic, anti-icing and photo-thermal de-icing ability, respectively. The experimental results confirm that GP and TiO₂ are successfully loaded into the PDMS coating, and the snowflake-like micro/nanostructures is formed on the superhydrophobic coating surface after the scorching treatment. The contact angle results show that the contact angle of the snowflake-like micro/nanostructures formed by cauterization reaches 157°, which is much larger than that of 94° before cauterization. Meanwhile, the roll-off experiments demonstrate that the droplets exhibit good roll-off phenomenon on the surface of the sintered GP/TiO₂/PDMS coatings. This is mainly due to the fact that the large amount of air stored on the surface of the burnt coating significantly improves the hydrophobicity of the coating. The photothermal experiments show that the cauterization treatment can significantly improve the photothermal performance of the coating, and the temperature of the cauterized GP/TiO₂/PDMS coating rises to 56.6 ℃ under visible light irradiation for 1 min. The photothermal conversion ability of the coating does not change significantly after several warming-cooling cycles, suggesting that the coating has good stability. In the anti-icing/photothermal de-icing experiments, the icing time of the droplets on the GP/TiO₂/PDMS coating after cauterization is four times longer than that of the normal coating. After icing, the ice on the burnt GP/TiO₂/PDMS coating melt in only 30 s under light, proving that the burnt GP/TiO₂/PDMS coating has good anti-icing performance and photothermal de-icing ability. In conclusion, the snowflake-like micro/nanostructure formed by cauterizing of the GP/TiO₂/PDMS coating makes the surface of the coating change from Wenzel model to Cassie model and significantly improves the hydrophobicity of the coating. The GP and the cauterizing treatment endow the coating with good photothermal ability, which can quickly remove the ice on the coating surface under the light condition. The combination of superhydrophobicity and photothermal property can effectively remove the ice on the cable surface, which provides a new idea to solve the problem of ice coating on the cable surface.

Key words

superhydrophobic coating / micro/nano structures / photothermal deicing / anti-icing/de-icing

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ZHANG Shengwei, YANG Ruifeng, ZHAO Zhenyu, ZHANG Jie. Construction and Photothermal De-icing Capability of Snowflake-like Micro/nano Superhydrophobic Coatings[J]. Surface Technology. 2025, 54(16): 202-211 https://doi.org/10.16490/j.cnki.issn.1001-3660.2025.16.017

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