Improvement of lubricant-infused surfaces for anti-icing applications

Slippery lubricant-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) were developed recently where a textured solid is impregnated with an immiscible lubricant with a low surface tension to create a smooth liquid overlayer to minimize ice nucleation and ice adhesion. Later, many similar surfaces were produced for the same objective using various liquids (perfluorinated, silicone oil, hydrocarbon and water), which were sometimes termed as ‘liquid-impregnated surfaces’. The favourable and adverse properties of SLIPS in anti-icing applications are discussed in this review. The importance of the ice-accretion experiments is also highlighted to evaluate the anti-icing performance. The use of SLIPS containing fluorinated or silicone lubricating layers for anti-icing applications has several drawbacks because of the lubricant loss due to drainage, evaporation and cloaking by contacting water droplets. On the other hand, SLIPS containing water and other aqueous lubricating layers on hygroscopic polymer supports seem to be more promising because of the replenishment of the aqueous lubricant by atmospheric moisture. The use of SLIPS in combination with traditional anti-icing and de-icing techniques or with Joule heating systems to decrease the amount of supplied electrical energy is recommended for future research.