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Updated: Oct 25, 2025

Fabrication of Superhydrophobic Metal Surfaces for Anti-Icing Applications
Published on: August 15, 2018
Using Frost to Promote Cassie Ice on Hydrophilic Pillars
Hyunggon Park1, S Farzad Ahmadi2,3, Jonathan B Boreyko2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA.
Abstract:
We develop a novel approach to suspend ice in the air-trapping Cassie state without requiring any fragile hydrophobic coatings or nanostructures. First, frost was preferentially grown on the tops of hydrophilic aluminum pillars due to their sharp corners and elevation over the noncondensable gas barrier. Subsequently, Cassie ice was formed by virtue of the impacting droplets getting arrested by the upper frost tips. A scaling model reveals that the dynamic pressure of an impacting droplet causes the water to wick inside the porous frost faster than the timescale to impale between the pillars.
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