Durable Icephobic Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) Using Flame- and Cold-Spraying

Abstract

Icing and ice accretion cause severe problems in different industrial sectors, e.g., in aircrafts, aviation traffic, ships, solar panels, and wind turbines. This can lead to enormous economic losses and serious safety issues. Surface engineering can tackle these problems by designing surface structures to work as icephobic coatings and, this way, act as passive anti-icing solutions. In this research, slippery liquid-infused porous structures were fabricated using flame- and cold-spraying to produce polymer (LDPE and PEEK) coatings, and impregnated with a silicone lubricant. Microstructural details, surface properties, wetting behavior, and cyclic icing–deicing behavior were evaluated via ice adhesion measurements, which show the potential performance of SLIPS designs. All these SLIPS showed low or medium-low ice adhesion after the first icing-deicing cycle and the best candidate showed stable performance even after several icing-deicing cycles.