Accumulation of snow and ice often causes problems and even dangerous situations for both industry and the general population. Passive de-icing technologies, e.g., hydrophobic, liquid-infused bionic surfaces, have attracted more and more attention compared with active de-icing technologies, e.g., electric heating, hot air heating, due to the passive de-icing technology's lower energy consumption and sustainability footprint. Using passive de-icing coatings seems to be one of the most promising solutions. However, the previously reported de-icing coatings suffer from high ice adhesion strength or short service life caused by wear. An intrinsic self-healing material based on poly-silicone-urea is developed in this work to address these problems. The material is prepared by introducing dynamic disulfide bonds into the hard phase of the polymer. Experimental results indicate that this poly-silicone-urea has a self-healing efficiency of close to 99%. More interestingly, it is found that the coating prepared from this poly-silicone-urea has a super low ice adhesion force, only 7 ± 1 kPa, which is almost the lowest value compared with previous intrinsic self-healing de-/anti-icing reports. This material can maintain low ice adhesion strength after healing. This intrinsic self-healing poly-silicone-urea can meet several practical applications, opening the door for future sustainable anti-/de-icing technologies.

Previous investigations on anti-/de-icing techniques have primarily focused on mild laboratory conditions, which have limited practical applicability due to their short service life. Consequently, there is an urgent demand for the development of durable anti-/de-icing technologies capable of withstanding complex environmental conditions. In this research endeavour, we have successfully formulated a hydrophobic coating based on graphene. To circumvent the challenges associated with environmentally unfriendly organic solvents, we utilized a graphene water slurry as the foundational material and subsequently incorporated a poly (vinyl alcohol)-water solution. The resulting solution was subjected to in situ polymerization of a siloxane urea crosslinked polymer, yielding the desired coating solution. Following a solution spraying and drying process, the ultimate product obtained was the hydrophobic conductive graphene (HCG) siloxane Coating. The HCG siloxane Coating exhibits a conductivity of 66 S/m, enabling it to melt ice droplets within a mere 10 s, whereas conventional coatings require 20–500 s for the same task. A comprehensive field test conducted during an entire winter period on a high mountain situated within the Arctic Circle in Finland demonstrated the excellent anti-icing properties of the developed coating when subjected to approximately 310 W/m2 power. Furthermore, the coating exhibited satisfactory de-icing performance under approximately 570 W/m2 power, successfully removing ice accumulations within approximately 10 min. Throughout the field test, temperatures frequently plummeted to −20 °C, accompanied by wind speeds reaching up to 12 m/s. Material characterization revealed that the micro-nano structure of the coating surface, which engenders favourable hydrophobic behaviour, was primarily attributed to the phase separation resulting from hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions. Moreover, the semi-interpenetrating structure formed by the polyvinyl alcohol molecular chains and in-situ polymerized siloxane urea ensured the coating's strength.

Wind power is considered as a sustainable and environmentally friendly energy source. However, the occurrence of icing poses significant challenges to energy production, particularly in frigid regions during the winter season. Conventional strategies employed for preventing and removing ice formation have proven inadequate due to their inability to satisfy intricate requirements or their high energy consumption. In this study, a commercial gelcoat coating was adopted as an anti-/de-icing coating by introducing different concentrations of graphene and boron nitride into the gelcoat coating through physical mixing. Extensive investigations were conducted on the correlation between anti-/de-icing, wear resistance, and thermal conductivity. Notably, the incorporation of nanoparticles induced a rise in the surface roughness, resulting in prolonged resistance to water icing on the coated surface. The wear resistance and thermal conductivity of the composite coating were enhanced through the inclusion of boron nitride and graphene. The building of thermal conductive particle networks improved thermal conductivity which can lead to improved heat transfer and heat distribution. At the same time, the enhanced gelcoat composite coating exhibited exceptional passive anti-/de-icing performance and wear resistance. This coating can replace commercial coatings to improve anti-/de-icing efficiency for the existing active heating anti-/de-icing techniques available in the market.

In this study, we aimed to enhance the wear resistance, thermal conductivity, and anti-/de-icing properties of a gelcoat composite coating by incorporating graphene and boron nitride. The gelcoat graphene coating showed better performance than the gelcoat boron nitride coating and pure gelcoat coating. The improved wear resistance of the gelcoat graphene coating can be attributed to the two-dimensional layer structure of graphene, while the addition of graphene resulted in a threefold increase in the thermal conductivity of the gelcoat composite coating compared to the pure gelcoat coating. The gelcoat composite coatings exhibited a high-water contact angle and low ice adhesive force. It was observed that as the surface roughness increased, the water contact angle also increased. The increase in ice adhesion after abrasion proves that abrasion is always detrimental to de-icing. Despite the extension of icing delay time, the large number of grooves and bumps created by wear results in stronger mechanical interlocking. It is worth mentioning that gelcoat graphene coating still demonstrated lower ice adhesive strength than gelcoat boron nitride coating and pure gelcoat coating. Overall, we successfully developed a gelcoat graphene coating with improved thermal conductivity, wear resistance, and low ice adhesive properties. This novel composite coating has the potential to significantly enhance the efficiency of existing heating technologies for anti-/de-icing applications, thereby reducing energy consumption associated with the turbine blades’ anti-/de-icing system.

Unwanted ice build-up is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature, which creates a series of catastrophic impacts on a wide range of human activities. Various anti/de-icing materials have been proposed for dealing with icing issues. Superhydrophobic anti/de-icing coatings have been widely reported since it has high efficiency and can be achieved in different ways. The surface functional groups have a significant influence on surface energy which is related to surface wettability. However, the influence of the coating surfaces functional groups on the anti-/de-icing properties is still not well studied. To investigate this influence, different groups with different hydrophilicity have been introduced to 3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,8-Tridecafluorooctyl acrylate (TFOA) to fabricate several branch copolymer ice-phobic coatings. The anti-icing performance and the influence of group radius and interaction were studied. The acrylic acid TFOA showed a great superhydrophobic property (over 150° water contact angle), lower ice adhesion strength (<50 kPa), and lower wear depth compared with other copolymer coatings. The mechanism was studied via the molecular dynamic calculation carried out in ChemDraw software. The interaction between hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups and the steric length of the hydrophilic groups influence the surface structure and surface element distribution, further influencing the ice adhesion strength.