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Nature and Prospective Applications of Ultra-Smooth Anti-Ice Coatings in Wind Turbines
Published in Ranjusha Rajagopalan, Avinash Balakrishnan, Innovations in Engineered Porous Materials for Energy Generation and Storage Applications, 2018
Hitesh Nanda, P.N.V. Harinath, Sachin Bramhe, Thanu Subramanian, Deepu Surendran, Vinayak Sabane, M.B. Nagaprakash, Rishikesh Karande, Alok Singh, Avinash Balakrishnan
The ability to design new materials that can withstand environmental challenges has been critical for human survival. Issues, such as crop decomposition due to the excessive moisture and hypothermia as a result of wet clothing, has provided mankind the needed motivation to develop novel protective barriers that could help in effectively repelling water in form of condensed moisture, rain, snow and ice. Many species have undergone evolution that allows them to resist the detrimental effects of water. Many surfaces in nature, most notably the leaves of the lotus flower and duck feathers are known to be super hydrophobic. These are the desired features that is been aspired by many industries for repelling moisture in materials in several situations (Barthlott and Neinhuis 1997, Wang et al. 2012). Most of the products are derived directly from nature, such as animal furs or natural fibres, which are further improved by incorporating organic or synthetic oils and waxes to withstand harsh climatic conditions involving water (Holman and Jarrell 1923, Burney 1935). These water repelling strategies has been tuned for continuous improvement throughout the human history until the modern understanding of liquid-solid interactions which allowed products to be designed for more advance features. Practical applications for super hydrophobic surfaces are abundant and versatile, if they can be imparted into fabrics, water resistant garments, transparent surfaces, e.g., glass windows and wind shields, outdoor optical devices, such as solar panels or satellites, etc. The surfaces have craved to be dirt and dust free to maintain their functionality. This can be achieved if the material could remove impacting and condensed water droplets from its surface and thus possess self-cleaning ability. Super hydrophobic surfaces can also lower the drag between the liquid and the surfaces of boat hulls or pipes thereby improving its efficiency. It can also reduce the ice adhesion in cold regions on machineries related to logistics, construction, heat exchangers, aviation, refrigerator units, power lines, meteorological instruments antennas, radars, etc., and can improve functionality and safety significantly (Kim et al 2008, Shillingford et al. 2014, Wilson et al. 2013). Icing has been a major concern in colder regions which accounts for lethal accidents, major power losses, lost capital and other nuisances around the globe (Mara et al. 1999, National 1996). The techniques for dealing with accreted ice have so far been costly, laborious and challenging. Though, surface sciences combined with nanotechnology have given encouraging results and reinitiated interest towards icephobic materials, it is stated that there are yet no surface coatings or materials which could be identified as perfectly ice-phobic (Laforte 2005). This emphasises the fact that the demand for anti-ice or lowered ice adhesion surfaces truly exists as it hinders many industries and operators especially in colder regions of the earth such as Artic.
Transparency and icephobicity of moth eye-inspired tailored omniphobic surface
Published in Surface Engineering, 2022
In this work, we proposed a facile approach to prepare the transparent anti-icing surface fabricated on the transparent substrate. After two times etchings which contained the DRIE process and followed by sharping step, the moth eye-inspired nanopillars were introduced on a surface. Sufficient hydrophobicity was achieved by the coating step to possess a transparent and icephobic surface. The tensile strength found on ice-surface adhesion was significantly decreased owing to the Cassie–Baxter state and low contact area compared to the flat and common rough surface, illustrating a rational positive anti-icing approach. In addition, a truncated array of nanopillar worked as a material layer with the gradient decrease of reflection index, demonstrating the great potential for optical enhancement and manufacturing of multifunctional surfaces.