Cold Spray Deposition of Adhesive Perfluoroalkoxy Alkane Coatings and Icephobic Performance Evaluation: The Effect of Frost

There is a growing need for anti-icing systems that do not require extensive manufacturing forethought or demand large amounts of energy. Icephobic polymer coatings are potential candidates for such systems, however traditional manufacturing processes are limited in design geometries and certain processes can degrade the coating’s material properties during deposition. This work aims to offer a different approach by using cold spray for coating production. Computational and experimental approaches are used to design a novel cold spray nozzle for the efficient deposition of adhesive perfluoroalkoxy alkane. The icephobic performance of coatings are evaluated using three-fold characterization, one for each stage of the icing process. First, the surface’s wetting behavior is established by examining single water droplets, followed by a time-lapse study of cooled droplets to observe their freezing behaviors, and lastly ice adhesion is evaluated with both macro and micro ice adhesion tests. While the as-sprayed coatings exhibited superhydrophobic properties that are desired in icephobic coatings, their behavior was altered when exposed to frost. Ice adhesion results revealed that surface frosting led to degraded wetting behaviors resulting in increased ice adhesion, demonstrating the importance of this phenomena when studying icephobic coatings.