A bio-inspired self-dislodging approach of ice

Novel and efficient anti-icing/de-icing methods should be continuously explored because ice accumulation has dramatic adverse effects on human activities.

Traditional thermal de-icing, as an active technique extensively used in the industry, requires enormous energy input and may deteriorate the functionality of wall material such as epoxies or resins if the temperature is too high. Passive de-icing methods cannot work alone for safety concerns, although they do not require external energy inputs.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to integrate the active de-icing method with the passive one, leading to a hybrid anti-icing/de-icing approach.

Inspired by natural creatures who usually use their surface structures to realize directional liquid transport for survival, a spontaneous self-dislodging approach of ice is proposed by artificially varying the surface wettability without external energy input. The de-icing performance of this method can be further enhanced by imposing a temperature gradient.

Compared with the traditional thermal de-icing method, the required de-icing time can be reduced by more than 90% based on the applicants test cases of this novel hybrid anti-icing/de-icing method that has not previously been proposed.

A mathematical model that will be validated by performing Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations will be built to quantify the effects of wettability and temperature variations on the de-icing performance of this novel method. This work will shed light on the design of intrinsically icephobic materials.