Bio-Inspired Anti-Icing Surface Materials

Anti-icing coatings as a scientific and engineering topic have been studied for decades, since the undesired ice accumulation on surfaces leads to serious economic, traffic, energy, and safety issues. Inspired by nature, researchers have provided different effective strategies to build anti-icing surfaces such as superhydrophobic surfaces, slippery surfaces, and sacrificial organogel surfaces. However, most of the strategies only work under some specific conditions or address only one of multiple sequential stages of the entire icing process, resulting in unsatisfactory anti-icing performance or failure in certain applications. For example, a superhydrophobic surface is an effective way to prevent the water accumulation before icing; otherwise after freezing, the ice will interlock with the micro-structures, resulting in strong adhesion. Therefore, it is important to understand comprehensively the mechanisms of icing on different surfaces at different stages (e.g., ice nucleation, propagation, and adhesion) and design specific strategies accordingly. In this chapter, we will summarize the state-of-the-art anti-icing materials considering three aspects: depressing ice nucleation, retarding ice propagation, and reducing ice adhesion. Meanwhile, the anti-icing mechanisms will be discussed based on the concept of interfacial water.