Effect of anti-icing coating functional groups on ice adhesion

Unwanted ice build-up is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature, which creates a series of catastrophic impacts on a wide range of human activities. Various anti/de-icing materials have been proposed for dealing with icing issues. Superhydrophobic anti/de-icing coatings have been widely reported since it has high efficiency and can be achieved in different ways. The surface functional groups have a significant influence on surface energy which is related to surface wettability. However, the influence of the coating surfaces functional groups on the anti-/deicing properties is still not well studied. To investigate this influence, different groups with different hydrophilicity have been introduced to 3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,8-Tridecafluorooctyl acrylate (TFOA) to fabricate several branch copolymer ice-phobic coatings. The anti-icing performance and the influence of group radius and interaction were studied. The acrylic acid TFOA showed a great superhydrophobic property (over 150 degrees water contact angle), lower ice adhesion strength (<50 kPa), and lower wear depth compared with other copolymer coatings. The mechanism was studied via the molecular dynamic calculation carried out in ChemDraw software. The interaction between hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups and the steric length of the hydrophilic groups influence the surface structure and surface element distribution, further influencing the ice adhesion strength.