pps proceeding - Abstract Preview
pps proceeding
Symposium: S17 - Special: CREPEC Student Symposium
Poster Presentation
 
 

Fabrication of Icephobic Slippery surfaces bioinspired by Nepenth Pitcher Plant

Heydarian Dolatabadi Samaneh (1)*, Jafari Reza (1), Momen Gelareh (1)

(1) University of Quebec at Chicoutimi - Quebec - Canada

Ice formation and ice accumulation on the infrastructures subjected to harsh cold-weather environments can cause continuously loss of energy and catastrophic affairs. Icephobic surfaces can offer the effective solutions to protect these infrastructures and increasing their energy efficiency. Inspired by Nepenth pitcher plant, the liquid infused coatings have got great interest in developing a cost-effective anti-icing method. In this research work, liquid-infused textured surfaces (LITS) have been developed based of chemical etching followed by replication method and the effect of the viscosity (50 and 500cSt) and infusion percentages of the lubricant on morphology and icephobicity of surfaces was studied. Indeed, the lubricant-infused silicone surfaces have been obtained by combination of the textured morphology and slipperiness. For this purpose, both lubricant viscosity value and lubricant content have been considered to fabricate the surfaces. We evaluated, then, the wettability, morphology and the localized surface elasticity maps of the fabricated surfaces using goniometer, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. Moreover, icephobic performance of the samples were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), push-off test, and freezing delay time measurements. The anti-icing results of LITS confirmed that the ice nucleation temperature was influenced by heat insulation effect of lubricant so that it decreased considerably compared to no oil surfaces. ice adhesion strength is obtained for samples containing the 50 cSt lubricant with oil content over 30%; while for samples containing the 500 cSt lubricant, the ice adhesion strength below 20 kPa is achieved in samples with oil content more than 20%. As such, the designed lubricant infused surfaces present more durable and stable anti-icing characteristics than smooth lubricant infused surfaces in the long term.