Icephobic behaviors of superhydrophobic amorphous carbon nano-films synthesized from a flame process.

Hypothesis: Ice formation and accumulation are critical issues for the breakdown of power lines, aircraft wings, and other important facilities in cold environments. Although a large number of passive icephobic surfaces based on superhydrophobic materials have been designed in the last few decades, the complicated and high-cost fabrication processes limit them beyond large-scale applications. Therefore it is indeed to further investigate the readily available and low-cost functional icephobic materials.

Experiments: In this article, a kind of superhydrophobic film consisting of amorphous carbon nano-particles was synthesized on common glass by the ethanol-flame synthesis method. More importantly, the microstructures of the as-prepared carbon nano-film, as well as the static contact angles, and the dynamic sliding-off angles of water droplets, were fully measured. The icephobic properties of the carbon nano-film and bare glass were also carefully investigated by measuring the critical parameters, including freezing times of water droplets, ice adhesion strengths, and dynamic sliding-off angles of droplets at different cooling temperatures.

Findings: Results of static contact angle and dynamic sliding-off angle measurements reveal that the as-synthesized carbon nano-film has outstanding superhydrophobic properties. Furthermore, water droplets could completely roll off from the carbon nano-film with inclination angles >5° at cooling temperatures as low as -23 °C. It is also observed that the superhydrophobic carbon nano-film remarkably decelerate the freezing process of water droplets on common glass. In addition, the ice adhesion strength is remarkably reduced by the carbon nano-film. Hence, the carbon nano-film yields excellent icephobic properties by effectively reducing the formation and accumulation of ice. Thus, our work provides a potential approach for low-cost icephobic applications.