Rational Design of Comprehensive Liquid-Like Coatings with Highly Transparent, Excellent Durability, and Solar Thermal Anti/Deicing via Ultrasonic Spraying

Solar anti/deicing addresses icing issues by converting sunlight into heat. However, traditional designs of photothermal materials, which are typically opaque and black for efficient heat generation, conflict with the demand for transparency. Herein, a highly transparent and durable solar anti/deicing surface is introduced, which exhibits light transmittance exceeding 80% at 550 nm and achieves a temperature rise of over 30 °C under 1.0 sun. Utilizing an industrial-scale spray-coating method, this surface integrates a highly lubricative PFPE hydrophobic layer with an ultrathin MXene layer through structural and molecular design, enabling both anti/deicing coatings on both rigid (glass) and flexible (PET) substrates. The coating exhibits low sliding angles for various liquids and possesses self-cleaning capabilities. Using tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as a bridging molecule and adhesive, the coating covalently bonds MXene for photothermal properties and PFPE for lubricity, thereby ingeniously balancing transparency, wettability, and mechanical strength while demonstrating superior multifunctionality. Moreover, the durability and stability of the coating are significantly enhanced, maintaining performance even after 1,000 cycles of adhesion and detachment, as well as exposure to extreme pH conditions. This study provides a design blueprint for manufacturing durable coatings that simultaneously achieve active and passive anti/deicing.