Application of anti-icing coating based on adsorption of functional substances by microporous sphere

•A nano-microporous sphere is used as a liquid reservoir/carrier, a large amount of functional substances with lubricating property or hydrophilic polymer are loaded in its abundant nanoscale microporous structure.•The anti-icing material introduces silicon oil and polyethylene glycol to form oil and water lubrication layer respectively, which can reduce the adhesion strength between cold air and solid surface.•Oil lubricating layer reduces the contact area of the ice with the solid substrate, the ice adhesion strength is only 1/5 of the adhesion strength of aluminum plate ice.•Water lubricating layer eliminate defects on the solid surface, make the surface smoother and prevent mechanical interlocking, its ice adhesion strength can be as low as 15 KPa.•The capillary force induced by nanoscale microporous structure of carrier can slow down the release rate of functional substances, improve the service life of functional anti-icing material. The occurrence of ice accretion on cold surfaces such as airplanes, power lines and wind turbines can cause various degrees of damage such as flight failure and power outage. Therefore, the reduction of ice adhesion is of great significance and widen application in aviation field. Based on the research status of anti-icing liquid-infused porous surfaces (LIPS) materials, this work attempts to use high specific surface area microporous silica as the carrier to adsorb a large content of functional substances with properties of lubricity and moisture retention, such as silicone oil and polyethylene glycol, and elastic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) crosslink polymer was selected as the substrate system. The functional substances are uniformly mixed in different proportions to construct different functional surfaces, which can form an oil/water lubricating layer interface between the cold air and the solid surface to reduce the ice adhesion strength. The functional coating in this work has a certain delaying frosting ability compared with uncoated aluminum plate and pure silicone rubber material in the low temperature environment of −10 °C to −15 °C. By testing the shear force between the ice and the cold surface, the ice adhesion strength on the functional substance dispersed material compared to the pure silicone rubber material can be reduced by 1/3 to 1/5, and can be reduced by 1/5 to 1/8 compared to the aluminum plate. It has a good low ice adhesion strength effect and can be used as anti-icing materials potentially.