A facile method of fabricating mechanical durable anti-icing coatings based on CeO2 microparticles

Compromising between hydrophobicity and mechanical durability may be a feasible approach to fabricating usable anti-icing coatings. This work improves the contact angle of current commercial anti-icing coatings applied to wind turbine blades dramatically and keeps relatively high mechanical durability. CeO2 microparticles and diluent were mixed with fluorocarbon resin to fabricate high hydrophobic coatings on the glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite substrates. The proportion of CeO2 microparticles and diluent influences the contact angles significantly. The optimum mass ratio of fluorocarbon resin to CeO2 microparticles to diluent is 1:1.5:1, which leads to the highest contact angle close to 140°. The microscopy analysis shows that the CeO2 microparticles form nano/microscale hierarchical structure on the surface of the coatings.