Review on superhydrophobic anti-icing coating for pavement

Ice on the pavement severely hindered the traffic capacity and driving safety. The traditional anti-icing approaches, such as chemical salt and mechanical device, negatively influence pavement structure and environment and require immediate improvement. The pavement superhydrophobic coating (SC), aiming to weaken the ice–pavement interface rather than clean up all the ice layer, could realize anti-icing at low cost and low environmental impact. Nowadays, there are many achievements in pavement SC’s self-preparation and performance verification. While the material preparation strategies and evaluation methods are diverse, and the unified understanding of its anti-icing mechanism and property performance is lacking. These limit the acceptance and development of this new anti-icing approach. Considering the above problems, this review of pavement SC is accomplished from three aspects. Firstly, the three anti-icing mechanisms corresponding to the three freezing stages were analyzed. Secondly, the commonly used superhydrophobic coating material component, the construction process, and the performance influencing factors were introduced. Thirdly, in terms of performance evaluation, various test methods and results of superhydrophobic property, skid resistance, anti-icing property, and durability are stated and compared. It is emphasized that improving the performance evaluation methods to reflect pavement characteristics, modifying the high durability and cost-effective materials, and constructing more practical applications are all effective for the pavement SC development.