Rf-Sputtered Teflon®-Modified Superhydrophobic Nanostructured Titanium Dioxide Coating on Aluminum Alloy for Icephobic Applications

Icing on surfaces such as cables or high-voltage insulators may often lead to severe safety issues such as power outages in cold winter conditions. Conventional methods used to tackle such icing problems include mechanical deicing, where the ice is scraped or broken, and chemical deicing, where deicers such as ethylene glycol are used. However, the best approach to addressing these issues is to prevent ice formation in the first place. Research in the past few decades have shown hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces to be effective in reducing ice adhesion. We used the concept of water repellency to turn an aluminum surface superhydrophobic to minimize ice adhesion on these surfaces. However, to render these surfaces also applicable to insulating surfaces, we also demonstrated the adaptability of the concept on a low dielectric oxide, TiO2, to an aluminum surface with icephobic properties. This work demonstrates the importance of the coexistence of rough nanostructures as well as low-surface-energy compositions on a surface to make it superhydrophobic and icephobic and is applicable on metals and insulating surfaces.