Phys.org July 26, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (Virginia Tech, UC Santa Barbara) created a de-icing method based on Cassie’s Law, which shows that air can be trapped under water drops if the drops are suspended atop a structure that is bumpy and water-repellent. They sought to make ice form in a layer with lower adhesion to the surface. They created an array of pillars, each one millimeter tall by half a millimeter wide. The tiny pedestals were machined into a pattern with a millimeter between the pillars. As the temperature dropped, frost preferentially grew on the […]
Tag Archives: De-icing
Jumping frost crystals: Lab works toward electrostatic de-icing
Phys.org February 24, 2021 Charge separation in frost has been studied in the past, but the effect has never been exploited to remove the frost from its surface. A team of researchers in the US (Virginia Tech, UC Santa Barbara) exploited the spontaneous electrification of ice to reveal a surprising phenomenon of jumping frost dendrites. They observed frost dendrites breaking off from mother dendrites and/or the substrate to jump out-of-plane toward an opposing polar liquid. They developed analytical and numerical models to estimate the attractive force between the frost dendrites and liquid and found it to be in good agreement […]