Icephobic/anti-icing properties of superhydrophobic surfaces

In the winter, icing on solid surfaces is a typical occurrence that may create a slew of hassles and even tragedies. Anti-icing surfaces are one of the effective solutions for this kind of problem. The roughness of a superhydrophobic surface traps air and weakens the contact between the solid surface and liquid water, allowing water droplets to be removed before freezing. At present, the conventional anti-icing methods including mechanical or thermal technology are not only surface structure unfriendly but also have the obsessions of low efficiency, high energy consumption and high manufacturing costs. Hence, developing a way to remove ice by just modifying the surface shape or chemical composition with a low surface energy is extremely desirable. Numerous attempts have been made to investigate the evolution of ice nucleation and icing on superhydrophobic surfaces under the direction of the ice nucleation hypothesis. In this paper, the research progress of ice nucleation in recent years is reviewed from theoretical and application. The icephobic surfaces are described using the wettability and classical nucleation theories. The benefits and drawbacks of anti-icing superhydrophobic surface are summarized, as well as deicing methods. Finally, several applications of ice phobic materials are illustrated, and some problems and challenges in the research field are discussed. We believed that this review will be useful in guiding future water freezing initiatives. A comprehensive insight about superhydrophobic surface is provided from the advantages of superhydrophobic surface anti-icing to the methods of deicing after freezing, which provides new ideas for the phenomenon of icing on superhydrophobic surface. [Display omitted] •The mechanisms of ice nucleation and ice adhesion on solid surfaces were summarized.•The influence of various factors of ice nucleation in current research was discussed.•The mechanism of ice formation and propagation were introduced.•Some effective surface deicing methods were introduced•In addition, some problems existing in superhydrophobic surfaces were introduced, and we focused on the durability of anti-icing surfaces and proposed some appropriate solutions.