INNOVATIONS: PRESENT&FUTURE
Researchers Develop a New Class of Ice-Proof Coatings that Shed Ice Effortlessly from a research of the University of Michigan Ann Arbour, MI, United States
ncmoore@umich.edu, gcherry@umich.edu
T
he University of Michigan announced the development of a new class
described how he and his colleagues turned to a property that isn’t
of spray-on coatings based on low interfacial toughness that cause
well-known in icing research. “For decades, coating research has focused on lowering adhesion
other large structures.
strength—the force per unit area required to tear a sheet of ice from a
The researchers overcame a major limitation of previous ice-repellent
surface,” Tuteja said. “The problem with this strategy is that the larger the
coatings—while they worked well on small areas, researchers found in
sheet of ice, the more force is required. We found that we were bumping
field testing that they didn’t shed ice on very large surfaces as effectively
up against the limits of low adhesion strength, and our coatings became
as they had hoped. That’s an issue, since ice tends to cause the biggest
ineffective once the surface area got large enough.”
problems on the biggest surfaces—sapping efficiency, jeopardizing safety
The new coatings solve the problem by introducing a second strategy:
and necessitating costly removal.
low interfacial toughness, abbreviated LIT. Surfaces with low interfacial
They cleared this hurdle with a “beautiful demonstration of mechanics.”
toughness encourage cracks to form between ice and the surface. And
Anish Tuteja, an associate professor of materials science and engineering,
unlike breaking an ice sheet’s surface adhesion, which requires tearing the
© Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering
ice to easily shed from surfaces of cargo ships, airplanes, power lines, and
Abhishek Dhyani, Macromolecular Science & Engineering PhD Student, sprays a low interfacial toughness (LIT) coating onto a surface.
40
N.30 - 2019 JUNE - ipcm® Protective Coatings