Durable ice-lubricating surfaces based on polydimethylsiloxane embedded silicone oil infused silica aerogel

The anti-ice coatings play a key role to save huge social and economic costs required for ice removal from variety of ice accreted structures. Typically, icephobic surfaces are defined by a low ice adhesion strength (τice) of less than 100 kPa, and current developments aim at much lower values (τice < 20 kPa) known as the upper threshold for self-removal of ice. In this direction, lubricant-infused polymers are considered as an effective icephobic coating materials, however, they usually suffer from lubricant runout with ice removal. In this work, we utilized silica aerogels to effectively captivate silicone oil by themselves in the polydimethylsiloxane matrix. As an outcome, our developed films demonstrated extremely low ice adhesion strength (τice < 20 kPa) along with durability for 20 icing/deicing cycles. Furthermore, the use of silica aerogels improved the mechanical strength of the film. This icephobic coating has high transparency (>90%) and can be effectively applied over colored surfaces.