Airports are extremely busy, particularly in the winter. When planes need to be dowsed with thousands of gallons of deicing fluids to help them combat the frigid winter, delays increase as passengers have to wait until the plane is ready to board. However, as soon as the plane takes off, the majority of the liquid is ejected from the plane’s surface, polluting freshwater streams and lakes.
Sushant Anand, UIC assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Rukmava Chatterjee, a UIC Ph.D. student. Image Credit: Jim Young/UIC Engineering.
Sushant Anand, a UIC assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Rukmava Chatterjee, a UIC Ph.D. student, developed a longer-lasting alternative to the existing deicers in an effort to make a more effective product for such demanding industries and consumers. Other industries could also benefit from this alternative medium.
We questioned the lifetime of the cryoprotectants and looked at new ways to increase their effectivity. Glycols dissolve very fast in the water and get washed away before the plane takes off, and it’s a serious problem that costs hundreds of millions of dollars—most of which literally ends up in the drain.
Sushant Anand, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago
Anand adds, “We thought, why not improve such chemicals themselves, and make alternatives that can last longer while being more biofriendly. And that is what we ended up doing.”
To achieve their goal, the researchers created a family of more than 80 anti-freezing coatings, which include polymeric solutions, creams, emulsions and gels. Without preconditioning or costly surface treatments, the formulations can be applied to steel, aluminum, glass, copper, plastic or any other industrial surface.
Our coatings are an all-in-one package which can delay formation of frost for extended hours and simultaneously cause any ice formed on its surface to easily shed off by a gentle breeze or simple substrate tilting.
Rukmava Chatterjee, PhD Student, University of Illinois Chicago
The study was published in the journal Advanced Materials.
The coatings are a group of phase change material-based formulations and multifunctional coatings that can tweak solid foulant adhesion on functional surfaces varying from ice to bacteria, regardless of the material chemistry and structure of the surfaces. This was achieved by controlling the number of chemicals that seep out of the material system and developing a lubricating surface layer that is both slippery and non-freezing in nature.
The anti-freezing gels are also transparent, which is important for applications such as runway lights and traffic signals that help pilots land, automobile windshields and building windows.
Chatterjee remarks, “Imagine coating your smartwatch with our gel that can inhibit ice accretion in the chilly negatives while simultaneously preventing any bacterial contamination.”
Since our anti-icing sprays are bio-friendly and anti-bacterial, we even think there is a potential to use them in agriculture to prevent crops from being ruined by severe frost. But that is a pipe dream, and we need to do more studies to see if there will be any long-term adverse effect on the plants.
Sushant Anand, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago
UIC’s Office of Technology Management filed a worldwide patent application titled “Compositions and Methods for Inhibiting Ice Formation on Surfaces.”
“There is great potential in these materials for many applications, and I think the day when commercial versions of our materials come out just got closer,” Anand concludes.
Hassan Bararnia and Umesh Chaudhuri collaborated with Chatterjee on the experiments.
Journal Reference:
Chatterjee, R., et al. (2022) A family of frost-resistant and icephobic coatings. Advanced Materials. doi.org/10.1002/adma.202109930.