Ice accretion causes problems in vital industries and has been addressed over the past decades with either passive or active de-icing systems. This work presents a smart, hybrid (passive and active) de-icing system through the combination of a low interfacial toughness coating, printed circuit board heaters, and an ice-detecting microwave sensor. The coating's interfacial toughness with ice is found to be temperature dependent and can be modulated using the embedded heaters. Accordingly, de-icing is realized without melting the interface. The synergistic combination of the low interfacial toughness coating and periodic heaters results in a greater de-icing power density than a full-coverage heater system. The hybrid de-icing system also shows durability towards repeated icing/de-icing, mechanical abrasion, outdoor exposure, and chemical contamination. A non-contact planar microwave resonator sensor is additionally designed and implemented to precisely detect the presence or absence of water or ice on the surface while operating beneath the coating, further enhancing the system's energy efficiency. Scalability of the smart coating is demonstrated using large (up to 1 m) iced interfaces. Overall, the smart hybrid system designed here offers a paradigm shift in de-icing that can efficiently render a surface ice-free without the need for energetically expensive interface melting.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32852-6 | DOI Listing |
Macromol Rapid Commun
January 2025
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS), 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore, 117575, Singapore.
The modification of thermoplastic polymers is frequently impeded by the inherent contradiction between their toughness and strength. In this study, an effective strategy to significantly improve the mechanical properties of ductile polymers by simply adding a complimentary rigid polymer is introduced. This work uses a semi-crystalline polymer aliphatic polyketone (POK) as the matrix material and a small quantity of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as the rigid polymer, through establishing molecular chain entanglements at the interface to produce POK/PMMA blends with exceptional mechanical property.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFiScience
January 2025
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University of Science & Technology, Hangzhou, P.R. China.
A possibility of unprecedented architecture may be opened up by combining both vertical and in-plane heterostructures. It is fascinating to discover that the interlayer stress transfer, interlayer binding energy, and interlayer shear stress of bi-layer Gr/hBN with CNTs heterostructures greatly increase (more than 2 times) with increase the numbers of CNTs and both saturate at the numbers of CNTs = 3, but it causes only 10.92% decrease in failure strain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActa Biomater
January 2025
The Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China.
Natural materials are valued for their lightweight properties, high strength, impact resistance, and fracture toughness, often outperforming human-made materials. This paper reviews recent research on biomimetic composites, focusing on how composition, microstructure, and interfacial characteristics affect mechanical properties like strength, stiffness, and toughness. It explores biological structures such as mollusk shells, bones, and insect exoskeletons that inspire lightweight designs, including honeycomb structures for weight reduction and impact resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Biol Macromol
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Advanced Packaging Materials and Technology of Hunan Province, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China. Electronic address:
Polylactide (PLA) is inherently brittle and lacks ductility, which greatly restricts its range of applications. In order to address these issues, we blended PLA with biodegradable poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-4-hydroxybutyrate) (P(3HB-co-4HB)), and introduced epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) as a reactive modifier to enhance the properties of the PLA/P(3HB-co-4HB) blends. Furthermore, we used theoretical calculations, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Soxhlet extraction, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarising optical microscopy (POM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and mechanical testing to investigate the compatibility, crystallization behavior, microstructure, thermal and mechanical properties of the PLA/P(3HB-co-4HB)/ESBO blends.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Mater Lett
January 2025
Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 45433, United States.
Photocurable self-healing elastomers are promising candidates for producing complex soft devices that can mend damage. However, the practicality of these materials is limited by reliance on external stimuli, custom synthesis, manual realignment, and multihour healing cycles. This paper introduces a tough 3D-printable hybrid acrylate/thiol-ene elastomer (prepared with commercially available precursors) that exhibits nearly instantaneous damage repair in the absence of external stimuli.
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