Self-healing icephobic coating with UV shielding and removability based on biobased epoxy and reversible disulfide bonds

Icephobic coatings have attracted wide attention due to low energy consumption, low cost, and high efficiency. However, the icephobic coating is vulnerable to external damage due to long-term exposure, which can result in icephobic properties loss and limit its industrial application. Herein, the novel amphiphilic epoxy self-healing icephobic coating was designed by a compound with multiple hydrophilic groups, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with hydrophobic groups and 4, 4′-diaminodiphenyldisulfide (APD) with reversible bonds. Moreover, considering the resource crisis, the biobased epoxy (GTE) was selected as the compound containing hydrophilic groups. In this study, the GTE will form hydrogen bonds with water molecules to achieve an anti-icing effect, while PDMS mainly play a deicing effect due to low surface energy. Due to the reasonable design, the icephobic coating showed good comprehensive icephobic properties: a 12.5-fold increase in icing delay time (802 s) and a 6.6-fold decrease in ice adhesion strength (32.6 kPa) compared with bare aluminum. Furthermore, the crystallization temperature of water was reduced by about 11 °C. More importantly, the APD with reversible disulfide bonds provides the icephobic coating with self-healing performance, removability, and excellent UV shielding performance. The coating provides a new idea for the preparation of sustainable and durable coatings with comprehensive icephobic performance.