Anti-icing ceramics surface induced by femtosecond laser. Issue 7 (1st April 2022) - Hong, Zhihao
Abstract: Femtosecond (fs) laser, as an efficient and precise microfabrication tool, has been widely used in material processing. Superhydrophobic surfaces have many applications in anti-icing, self-cleaning and frost resistance. In this paper, nested micro/nanostructures were induced by fs laser on the surface of alumina ceramics. After modification by polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), the ceramics surface induced by fs laser changes from superhydrophilicity to superhydrophobicity. The anti-icing and frost resistance of functional ceramics surface were studied. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images show that the cross-scanning laser processing mode can induce the nested micro/nanostructures on ceramics surface, resulting in excellent superhydrophobic surface with water contact angle (WCA) up to176.39° and water rolling angle (WRA) as low as 1°. The experimental results show that the dynamic process of droplet icing on superhydrophobic surface includes three typical states, and the freezing delay time of droplet is mainly caused by the change from the liquid phase to the ice shell. The freezing delay time of the superhydrophobic surface is 189 s laser than that of the intrinsic ceramics surface. In addition, the distance between the adjacent condensation droplets on superhydrophobic ceramics is larger than that on intrinsic surface, which can effectively prevent the diffusion of frost. The superhydrophobic ceramic with frost resistance and anti-icing has a wide application in power transmission lines, aircraft, wind turbine blades, air conditioning pipe and chemical production.