Photothermal Active-Deicing Nanocoatings with Long-Term Superhydrophobicity Based on In Situ Amorphous Polymers...

The photothermal superhydrophobic coating has garnered considerable attention owing to its captivating and promising deicing applications in an eco-friendly and efficient way. However, designing an active-deicing nanocoating with both mechanical stability, superhydrophobicity, and photothermal performance from molecular structure remains a challenge. Herein, a robust epoxy (EP)&polysiloxane (PS) photothermal superhydrophobic coating (EP&PS-PSC) is constructed by combining hydrophilic EP and hydrophobic PS along with graphene nanosheets via phase separation and swelling treatment strategy. Notably, polar epoxy with lower volume shrinkage can effectively inhibit swelling-type polymers to achieve subsequent micro-/nanostructures construction. Besides, the epoxy can also provide strong interaction interactions between the micro-/nanostructures. While non-polar liquid silicon rubber provides a low surface energy for achieving composite micro-/nanostructures. Furthermore, the as-prepared EP&PS-PSC exhibits exceptional mechanical stability (e.g., 100 cycled sandpaper linear abrasion with 100 g load) with a WCA of 154.9° ± 1.2° and a WSA of 4.8° ± 1.3°, which is beneficial to improve physicochemical stability and deicing performance. The combination of long-term superhydrophobicity and photothermal capability results in a maximum temperature of 59.4 °C being achieved within 400 s under standard sunlight. This work offers a novel approach for the mass production and practical application of the superhydrophobic coating in the active deicing field.