Title: Anti-icing and anti-fouling properties of pitcher plant inspired coatings

Abstract

Ice or snow accumulation on surfaces, especially in cold environments, leads to failure of several systems such as wind turbines, power lines, water lines, ships, airplanes and so on. This malfunction can cause economic loss and fatalities. Despite there are some ice removal methods like mechanical scraping, thermal treatments and deicing fluid treatments, these methods are generally expensive and cannot be applied to all systems. To overcome icing problems on surfaces, some anti-icing coating methods that prevent ice accumulation have been developed. Superhydrophobic surfaces were considered as an important candidate for anti-icing coatings due to their high water-repellency properties. However, some studies showed that superhydrophobic surfaces are not always successful at preventing ice formation because they can lose their water repellency properties in high humidity conditions, or they can be damaged during ice nucleation. On the other hand, fouling is an important problem of surfaces. Fouling can be caused by the accumulation of unwanted substances such as dirt, sand, rust, microorganisms, bacteria, proteins, etc. Fouling can cause failure and capacity loss of materials, and if the fouling occurs on the surface of biomaterials (biofouling), it can cause fatal consequences. Recently, pitcher plant inspired slippery coatings with multi-liquid repellency, anti-fouling and anti-icing properties were developed. The main idea of this novel coating is to produce a porous surface that can hold tightly a lubricant, and then obtaining a slippery coating by lubricating this surface. In this work, pitcher plant inspired slippery coatings were developed on glass surface with different coating methods like chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and layer-by-layer assembly, and then they were lubricated with silicone oil or glycerin. These coatings showed very good water repellency, anti-fouling, and anti-icing properties with high durability against raining conditions and heating conditions. These promising slippery coatings have potential to be used in a wide range of applications.