Superhydrophobic microstructures for better anti-icing performances: open-cell or closed-cell?

Based on geometrical characteristics, all surface microstructures are categorized into two types: closed-cell and open-cell structures. Closed-cell structures are well-known to have more stable and durable superhydrophobicity at room temperatures. However, in low-temperature environments where massive environmentally induced physical changes emerge, whether closed-cell surfaces can maintain good anti-icing performances has not yet been confirmed, and thus how to design optimal superhydrophobic anti-icing microstructures is rarely reported. Here, we apply an ultrafast laser to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces with tunable patterned micro-nanostructures from a complete closed-cell to different ratios and to a complete open-cell. We discover that droplets on closed-cell structures completely degrade to the high-adhesion Wenzel state after icing and melting cycles while those on the open-cell structures well recover to the original Cassie-Baxter state. We propose an improved ideal gas model to clarify the mechanisms that the decreased air pocket pressure and the air dissolution on closed-cell structures induce easy impalement during icing and the difficult recovery during melting, paving the way for optimizing the anti-icing structure design. The optimized open-cell surfaces exhibit over 33 times lower ice adhesion strengths (1.4 kPa) and long-term icephobic durability (<20 kPa after 33 deicing cycles) owing to the increased air pocket pressure at low temperatures. Significant dewetting processes during condensation endow the open-cell structures with more remarkable high-humidity resistance and anti-frosting properties. Our study reveals the general design principle of superhydrophobic anti-icing structures, which might guide the design of superhydrophobic anti-icing surfaces in practical harsh environments.