Icing of static and high-speed water droplets on superhydrophobic surface

•Freezing temperature of static water droplet on superhydrophobic surface is lowered down to −10.5 °C.•Static water droplet on superhydrophobic surface will not freeze at −5 °C.•Static water droplets on superhydrophobic Al alloy surface are delayed about 23 min before starting to freeze at −10 °C.•Superhydrophobic surface has no anti-icing performance for high-speed water droplets of 10 m/s at −10 °C. Superhydrophobic surface (SHS) attracted great attention in the field of anti-icing due to its unique superwettability. Herein, SHS was fabricated on aluminum (Al) alloy substrate with a water contact angle of 152.2° and a sliding angle of 3.4° by simple chemical etching and long-alkyl-chain grafting. Anti-icing performances of both static and dynamic water droplets on SHS were investigated. Results demonstrated that SHS delayed the ice nucleation of static water droplet greatly, however, could not suppress the icing of high-speed water droplets.