Thermally Sprayed Coatings: Novel Surface Engineering Strategy Towards Icephobic Solutions

Surface engineering promotes possibilities to develop sustainable solutions to icing challenges. Durable icephobic solutions are under high interest because the functionality of many surfaces can be limited both over time and in icing conditions. To solve this, one potential approach is to use thermally sprayed polymer or composite coatings with multifunctional properties as a novel surface design method. In thermal spraying, coating materials and structures can be tailored in order to achieve different surface properties, e.g., wetting performance, roughness and protection against several weathering and wearing conditions. These, in turn, are beneficial for excellent icephobic performance and surface durability. The icephobicity of several different surfaces are tested in our icing wind tunnel (IWiT). Here, mixed-glaze ice is accreted from supercooled water droplets and the ice adhesion is measured using a centrifugal adhesion tester (CAT). The present study focuses on the icephobicity of thermally sprayed coatings. In addition, surface-related properties are evaluated in order to illustrate the correlation between the icephobic performance and the surface properties of differently tailored thermally sprayed coatings as well as compared those to other coatings and surfaces.