Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Ice accretion and ice adhesion on the exposed surfaces of structures such as transmission networks, electrical energy lines, wind turbines, and aircraft can result in severe structural damage and lead to critical safety and economic issues. Traditional methods of combatting icing problems (heating, mechanical de-icing, and chemical treatments) are time and energy consuming, costly, and environmentally hazardous. Conventional icephobic coatings provide an attractive solution for preventing ice accretion and heterogeneous ice nucleation and reducing the ice-surface adhesion. This functionality should ideally remain present over a coating's lifetime; however, the relatively poor resilience of existing icephobic coatings currently limits their applicability. Given the abovementioned drawbacks of traditional anti-icing and de-icing techniques, a more realistic approach would involve combining these strategies into a hybrid product that delivers fail-safe and durable anti-icing and de-icing strategies. This Discovery program will produce practical, reliable, and durable ice protection systems through fundamental research on hybrid anti-icing/de-icing materials and overcome existing issues associated with ice formation, accumulation, and adhesion. This new conceptual hybrid anti-icing/de-icing strategy will provide practical solutions to mitigate outdoor anti-icing/de-icing problems in cold regions such as Canada. Moreover, hybrid ice protection systems offer, for critical applications such as the aviation industry, a reduced risk of failure and a higher reliability. If the effectiveness of one of the coupled strategies is hindered, the performance of the other can compensate to avoid serious repercussions. The proposed Discovery framework involves 1) fabricating energy-efficient and durable hybrid ice protection surfaces that incorporate passive icephobic coatings combined with electro-/photo-thermal di-icing techniques; 2) developing hybrid piezoelectric ice protection systems having an optimized energy consumption; and 3) developing self-healing hybrid icephobic materials to improve the durability of the developed hybrid system. The projected research foresees advances at the fundamental and applied levels to make Canada a leader in ice protection systems. In contrast to existing de-icing and icephobic approaches, these new hybrid ice protection systems will be multifunctional and more reliable, durable, and economical, and will favour lower CO2 emissions through reduced energy consumption. These novel anti-icing/de-icing strategies will offer a practical solution for existing and often costly ice-related problems affecting industry. Finally, this program will train several HQPs in a field currently experiencing high demand in academia and multiple industries in Canada and other cold regions.