Dynamic Study of Liquid Drop Impact on Supercooled Cerium Dioxide: Anti-Icing Behavior

This work deals with the anti-icing behavior at subfreezing temperatures of CeO2/polyurethane nanocomposite coatings with and without a stearic acid treatment on aluminum alloy substrates. The samples ranged from superhydrophilic to superhydrophobic depending on surface morphology and surface functionalization. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to determine the surface composition. The anti-icing behavior was studied both by importing fog into a chamber with controlled atmosphere at subzero temperatures and by conducting experiments with drop impact velocities of 1.98, 2.8, 3.83, and 4.95 m/s. It was found that the ice-phobicity of the ceramic/polymer nanocomposite coating was dependent on the surface roughness and surface energy. Water drops were observed to completely rebound from the surface at subfreezing temperatures from superhydrophobic surfaces with small contact angle hysteresis regardless of the impact velocity, thus revealing the anti-icing capability of such surfaces.