The icephobicity comparison of polysiloxane modified hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces under condensing environments

Abstract Four polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coatings with different surface free energies have been prepared and applied to smooth and roughened aluminum plates to form hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces. Their surface wettability in terms of water contact angle (CA), sliding angle (SA) and water droplet impact dynamics was studied under an ambient (50% relative humidity, RH at 25 °C) and three different condensing environments (low, highly and extremely condensing, i.e. 30%, 60% and 90% RH at −10 °C). In addition, the surface ice adhesion was investigated under the extremely condensing condition. Different PDMS coatings on either smooth or roughened surfaces displayed a very similar impact to static and dynamic wettability under the ambient environment. However, the water impact behavior and ice adhesion under the extremely condensing condition between the hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces are significantly different. One of the superhydrophobic surfaces (R2180) demonstrated an excellent water repelling capability to retard ice accumulation, and reduced ice adhesion strength even under the extremely condensing condition, and thus will be a good candidate for ice-phobic applications. This excellent ice-phobic property is attributed to the low surface free energy of the coating, which effectively prevents the water condensation inside the cavities of the hierarchical superhydrophobic structures and thus maintains “air cushion” on the solid/water interface, indicated by a very low solid-liquid contact area increase after surface is exposed to this condensing weather condition. This result demonstrates that the “air cushion” in a superhydrophobic surface could be maintained even under an extremely condensing condition by carefully selection of coating composition with a very low surface free energy.