Icing on substance surfaces is known to cause serious problems that often leads to costly safety issues in the fields of transportations, astronavigation and aeronautics, power transmission and telecommunication. Although currently available de-icing techniques by mechanically removing, heating or spraying chemicals are generally effective, they can result in energy consumptions and environment pollutions. Meanwhile, the method of anti-icing coatings to protect the substance surfaces is considered as an effective and available way showing highly potential applications, which has aroused extensive interest among scientists in recent years. In this review, the mechanism of the coatings to prevent icing and the basic factors that affect the ice adhesion on substance are briefly introduced. Furthermore, the research progresses and prospects of various anti-icing coatings are particularly summarized, including sacrificial coatings, icephobic coatings and superhydrophobic coatings. Moreover, the preparation methods of these anti-icing coatings are emphatically described. It has been proved that icephobic or superhydrophobic coatings containing fluorine and silicone with low surface energy can be applied to anti-icing by shortening the attaching time of water droplets on the substrates and reducing the ice adhesion strength. The challenges and the prospective tendency of anti-icing coatings are also given based on the current researches. Contents
1 Introduction
2 Anti-icing principles of coatings
3 Research status in anti-icing coatings
3.1 Sacrificial coatings
3.2 Icephobic coatings
3.3 Superhydrophobic coatings
4 Challenges for anti-icing coatings
5 Conclusions