Flexible Electrothermal Hydrophobic Self-Lubricating Tape for Controllable Anti-icing and De-icing
Yang Wan, Ying Liu, Ying Liu, Yubo Liu, Yubo Liu, Chenggang Sun, Kai Feng, Yang Wu, Feng Zhou
Abstract
In winter, the freezing phenomenon threatens the safety of people both in the work and home environments. At present, electrothermal de-icing technology is widely used, but how to improve the portability and anti-icing/de-icing efficiency of electrothermal de-icing technology has attracted extensive attention. Here, we proposed a simple yet universal flexible electrothermal hydrophobic self-lubricating tape (EHT) with a multilayer structure including an electrothermal layer and hydrophobic self-lubricating layer on a polyimide base. The resulting tape surface exhibits a hydrophobic/electrothermal synergistic effect on anti-icing and de-icing performance. Compared with the electrothermal tape (ET) without a hydrophobic self-lubricating layer, the friction coefficient and ice adhesion strength on the EHT surface were reduced by 29% and 57%, respectively. In addition, the hydrophobic self-lubrication effect of EHT can reduce the adhesion of supercooled water droplets on its surface in an extremely harsh environment to allow more de-icing easily under joule heat, and the different electrothermal power demand in diverse surroundings can be controlled by adjustable voltage. More importantly, the uniform EHT material can be prepared in a large area using a traditional blade-coating process that gives a convenient route to anti-icing in the engineering protection field.