Conducting Super-Hydrophobic Thin Film for Electric Heating Applications

Frost presents a serious problem for the human environment, resulting in such phenomena as downed power lines, damaged crops and stalled aircraft. In addition, frost and ice accumulation significantly decrease the performance of ships, wind turbines, and HVAC systems with high failure risk. Super-hydrophobic (SH) surface can be an appropriate solution for frost problems, due to its anti-icing properties that can prevent ice nucleation on the surface. In addition, in the case of conducting SH surface using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a filler, it can form an excellent heating unit, owing to the resistive heating effect. The purpose of this study is to produce a large-area conducting SH film that can prevent ice nucleus and remove ice formation rapidly. High aspect ratio carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a conducting filler and adhesive polymer resin as a binder were used to form coating layer. In addition, silica particles (~7 nm) were used to stabilize nano-size roughness of the SH surface. Wet and dry etching processes were used on the substrate to improve wettability and to produce organic functional groups. To evaluate the de-icing effect, the fabricated SH surface was rapidly heated to 150 °C by applying voltage.