Impact Dynamics and Freezing Behavior of Surfactant-Laden Droplets on Non-Wettable Coatings at Subzero Temperatures

The present study investigates the impact and freezing behavior of the droplets of surfactant solutions on non-wettable coatings at very low temperatures of −10 to −30 °C. Our goal is to elucidate the critical role of concentration, molecular weight, and ionic nature of surfactants on these phenomena. To achieve this goal, we used sodium dodecyl sulfate (anionic), hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (cationic), and n-decanoyl-n-methylglucamine (nonionic) at four concentrations ranging from 0 to 2 × CMC (critical micelle concentration). We captured the impact-freezing of the droplets on superhydrophobic alkyl ketene dimer coatings using a high-speed camera at 5000 frames per second. The results show that the ability of the droplets to spread and retract on the coatings is a function of concentration, ionic nature, and molecular weight of the surfactants, as well as the temperature-dependent viscosity of the solutions. Additionally, surfactant-laden droplets generally demonstrated an accelerated freezing compared to pure water. This might be due to the fact that the presence of surfactants can promote both heterogeneous ice nucleation from within the liquid and a larger solid–liquid interfacial area by filling the air pockets of the surface, leading to enhanced heat transfer. The behavior of the cationic surfactant at certain concentrations was, however, an exception leading to a freezing delay, for which a mechanism will be proposed.