Long-term-durable anti-icing superhydrophobic composite coatings

摘要

We prepared carbon-based superhydrophobic composite coatings through a quick technique, merging multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) to obtain hierarchical nanostructures on fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets; this was followed by supercritical fluid (SCF) processing and physical mixing (PM). The prepared SCF-MWCNT-CNF and PM-MWCNT-CNF composite coatings showed high water contact angles of 171.6 and 160 degrees. The surface morphologies of the composite coatings revealed a lot of even nanostructures and folding at high magnifications. A high number of CNFs were added to the MWCNTs to initiate different nanoroughnesses in the composite coatings. The as-prepared superhydrophobic composite coatings showed excellent anti-icing properties, as indicated by the supercooled water droplet (-20 degrees C) test under environmental conditions. Also, the surface of the SCF-MWCNT-CNF superhydrophobic composite coating showed excellent antifouling properties. We studied the surface wettability increasing different temperatures (30-180 degrees C) in the SCF-MWCNT-CNF composite; this exposed the fact that the FRP sheets were thermally stable up to 100 degrees C, and a while later, they changed from a superhydrophobic state to a superhydrophilic state at 180 degrees C. This study revealed an economically workable method for the preparation of MWCNT-CNF composites with SCF techniques. (c) 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.