The impact of high humidity on the ice-phobicity of copper-based superhydrophobic surfaces:

Humidity, as an important meteorological factor, has rarely been taken into account as far as the ice-phobicity research is concerned. For the first time, the ice-phobicity of a silver-modified copper surface with 1-dodecanethiol coating was investigated in an environment with 69% humidity. It turns out that high humidity has no impact on the superhydrophobicity of the surface at the room temperature. However, humidity compromises the water repellency by decreasing the contact angle from 156 degrees +/- 2 degrees to 116 degrees +/- 2 degrees when the temperature reaches zero. By further lowering the temperature, the robust ice-phobicity is observed on the superhydrophobically coated surface. In conjunction with the favorable topological configuration and in high humid surroundings, the intrinsic wettability of the superhydrophobic surfaces dramatically delays the freezing process for 120 s.