Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095.
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 May 26;117(21):11240-11246. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2001972117. Epub 2020 May 11.
Ice accumulation causes various problems in our daily life for human society. The daunting challenges in ice prevention and removal call for novel efficient antiicing strategies. Recently, photothermal materials have gained attention for creating icephobic surfaces owing to their merits of energy conservation and environmental friendliness. However, it is always challenging to get an ideal photothermal material which is cheap, easily fabricating, and highly photothermally efficient. Here, we demonstrate a low-cost, high-efficiency superhydrophobic photothermal surface, uniquely based on inexpensive commonly seen candle soot. It consists of three components: candle soot, silica shell, and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes. The candle soot provides hierarchical nano/microstructures and photothermal ability, the silica shell strengthens the hierarchical candle soot, and the grafted low-surface-energy PDMS brushes endow the surface with superhydrophobicity. Upon illumination under 1 sun, the surface temperature can increase by 53 °C, so that no ice can form at an environmental temperature as low as -50 °C and it can also rapidly melt the accumulated frost and ice in 300 s. The superhydrophobicity enables the melted water to slide away immediately, leaving a clean and dry surface. The surface can also self-clean, which further enhances its effectiveness by removing dust and other contaminants which absorb and scatter sunlight. In addition, after oxygen plasma treatment, the surface can restore superhydrophobicity with sunlight illumination. The presented icephobic surface shows great potential and broad impacts owing to its inexpensive component materials, simplicity, ecofriendliness, and high energy efficiency.
冰的积累给人类社会的日常生活造成了各种问题。预防和清除冰的艰巨挑战需要新颖的高效防冰策略。最近，由于其节能和环保的优点，光热材料因其能够制备具有疏冰性能的表面而受到关注。然而，获得一种廉价、易于制备且具有高光热效率的理想光热材料一直具有挑战性。在这里，我们展示了一种基于廉价且常见的蜡烛烟灰的低成本、高效率的超疏水光热表面。它由三个组件组成：蜡烛烟灰、二氧化硅壳和聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）刷。蜡烛烟灰提供了分级的纳米/微米结构和光热能力，二氧化硅壳增强了分级的蜡烛烟灰，接枝的低表面能 PDMS 刷赋予表面超疏水性。在 1 个太阳光照射下，表面温度可以增加 53°C，因此在环境温度低至-50°C 时也不会形成冰，并且可以在 300s 内迅速融化积累的霜和冰。超疏水性使融化的水立即滑离，留下干净干燥的表面。该表面还可以自清洁，通过去除吸收和散射阳光的灰尘和其他污染物来进一步提高其效果。此外，经过氧等离子体处理后，表面可以在阳光照射下恢复超疏水性。由于其廉价的组成材料、简单性、环保性和高能量效率，这种疏冰表面具有很大的潜力和广泛的影响。
