A robust and reusable lubricant-infused surface with anticorrosion and anti-icing properties

With increasing exploration of the polar regions, ice class ships face more challenges, and anti-icing–deicing and anticorrosion have become important factors for adding value. Lubricant-infused surfaces (LIS) have received significant attention due to their combination of anticorrosion and anti-icing performance, but their microstructure has lacked robustness. Herein, a robust and reusable LIS was obtained, based on microstructured epoxy resin with surface modification and infused with lubricant. The freezing time of water droplets on different surfaces was evaluated, and the LIS showed a freezing time of longer than 20 min. The LIS exhibited ice adhesion strength of <10 kPa. After 20 icing–deicing cycles, the mesh-like microstructure remained intact; when re-infused with lubricant, the anti-icing performance was as good as the original, suggesting the reusability of LIS. The corrosion resistance performance was characterized by electrochemical measurements. The corrosion rates (20 days' immersion) of our microstructured epoxy LIS samples, without silica microbeads (EP300-LIS) and with (EP300Si-LIS) were 5.44 × 10⁻⁷ mm/year and 5.78 × 10⁻⁸ mm/year, respectively. After immersion for 30 days, the high-frequency phase angle was about −90°, and the Z_{0.01 Hz} of EP300-LIS and EP300Si-LIS were 10⁸ Ω and 10¹⁰ Ω, respectively. LIS based on this microstructured epoxy resin has shown robustness and durability, and has excellent potential for applications in ice class ships.