Fracture-Promoted Ultraslippery Ice Detachment Interface for Long-Lasting Anti-icing

Ice accumulation on surfaces significantly jeopardizes the operational security and economic effectiveness of equipment. As one of the efficient anti-icing strategies, fracture-induced ice detachment strategy can realize low ice adhesion strength and is feasible for large-area anti-icing, but its application in harsh environment is restrained by mechanical robustness deterioration due to ultralow elastic moduli. It is still a challenge for fracture-promoted interfaces to reach ultralow ice adhesion and maintain strong mechanical robustness. Drawing inspiration from subcutaneous tissue, we propose a multiscale interpenetrating reinforcing method to develop a fracture-promoted ultraslippery ice detachment interface. Our approach minimizes elastic deformation and the stress threshold of fracture initiation during ice detachment, ensuring fast and noninjurious ice detachment on the interface. At the same time, this method reinforces the mechanical robustness of the fracture-promoted ultraslippery interface, making it possible to ensure long-term operation under harsh conditions. The superiority is revealed by ultralow ice adhesion strength below 20 kPa at -30 °C even after 200 continuous abrasion cycles, as well as efficient ice shedding during dynamic anti-icing tests, which is clarified by theoretical prediction and experimental verification. This work is expected to enlighten the design of next-generation durable anti-icing interface.