Hierarchical micro/nano/porous structure PVDF/hydrophobic GO photothermal membrane with highly efficient anti-icing/de-icing performance

Frequent icing and frosting cause severe economic losses and, more seriously, may endanger life of human beings. Efficient strategies for anti-icing remain to be developed. Superhydrophobic surface is considered an effective anti-icing material. Nevertheless, it still has disadvantages of complicated operation steps and difficulty in large-scale preparation, and its freezing time is limited while ice will increase rapidly once its surface is frozen. Herein, hierarchical micro/nano/porous superhydrophobic coatings with photothermal property were prepared, which combined active and passive de-icing/anti-icing properties. Hydrophobic graphene oxide (GO) was introduced to PVDF substrate to facilitate formation of hierarchical micro/nano/porous structures. Therefore, superhydrophobicity and photothermal properties were both achieved. In addition, porous structures and folds on the inner wall provide more traps and longer trajectories for incident light, and thus the possibility of absorbing sunlight increased dramatically due to multiple reflections, therefore enhancing the solar-to-heat conversion efficiency. The superhydrophobic property endowed the membrane with excellent anti-icing performance, moreover, the freezing time of PVDF+GOF (10%) was 213 s and it was 14 times that of the untreated glass surface. What’s more, within 3 min, the temperature of PVDF+GOF(10%) coating can rise from 20 °C to 72 °C or from − 10–11 °C under 1 sun illumination condition. Hence, the photothermal superhydrophobic material can remain unfrozen for a long time in the low temperature and the fast, effective preparation method will expand practical application of superhydrophobic surfaces.