Xianghui Hou

Icing on critical infrastructure causes significant damage and economic losses. Mitigating the issue requires durable icephobic coatings. This study introduces a novel polydimethylsiloxane‐based coating, modified with silicone oil and silicon carbide (SiC) fibers to establish an interconnected network. This innovative design notably improved the icephobicity. The icing delay duration increased from 9 s for bare aluminum to 70 s, indicating a higher energy barrier against freezing. The coating exhibited a water contact angle of 128.4°, effectively impeding droplet propagation and improving the thermal efficiency. Additionally, the incorporation of SiC fibers reduced the heterogeneous nucleation sites, thereby enhancing droplet mobility and inhibiting ice formation. The coating demonstrated exceptional mechanical durability, maintaining an ice adhesion strength of 74.8 ± 1.3 kPa with minimal weight loss after 60 icing/deicing cycles. The SiC fiber network effectively mitigated freeze–thaw damage by preventing cracks, ensuring long‐term icephobicity. This research provides a practical solution for designing robust icephobic coatings for harsh environments.

Acoustic deicing technology shows great potential for aviation applications owing to its high energy efficiency. However, current studies mainly focus on the macroscopic performance under acoustic actions, while an in-depth acoustic deicing mechanism has yet to be established. To address this challenge, a new acoustic deicing concept of interfacial tunnel effect is proposed and verified through in situ experimental investigation and finite element simulation. This effect refers to the formation of a concentrated acoustic energy path along the ice/solid interface, which facilitates interface separation through localized mechanical vibrations, shear stress, and acoustic thermal phase changes. The results demonstrate that surface waves feature high intensity but rapid attenuation during the interfacial propagation, while plate waves have much less energy dissipation into the substrates but with a relatively low interfacial intensity. The hybrid acoustic wave integrates these two features and sustains the interfacial tunnel across the entire ice/solid boundary with sufficient acoustic intensity, resulting in effective ice removal. Further deicing study on the acoustic/mechanical coupled field proves the effectiveness of external shear force in facilitating interfacial tunnel propagation. This work establishes the fundamentals of acoustic deicing, providing design guidance for efficient acoustic deicing technologies.

Rising vehicle Mach numbers urgently necessitate broadband electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbers capable of operating at even higher temperatures while maintaining environmental durability. However, Current high-temperature EMW absorbing materials face the restriction and temperature-sensitivity of dielectric frequency-dispersion (FD), which often forces reliance on complex macro-structures to broaden effective absorption bandwidth (EAB). Here, inspired by the concept of finite element method, we propose a controlled FD regulation strategy to overcome this by employing multivariate ultra-high temperature ceramic (UHTC) borides with tunable surface oxide thickness. The fabricated material (without structural design) yields a broad EAB of 26.98 GHz at just 2.8 mm thickness, alongside environmental resistance. Crucially, the multivariate polarization remains effective for FD regulation even at 1473 K, enabling our material to harvest an EAB of 10.26 GHz after applying an oxide layer, showing bright application prospects for the stealth of high-speed vehicles.

Icephobic surfaces offer a passive protection strategy against icing hazards in industrial applications. However, the improvement of surface icephobicity is normally accompanied by a compromise in mechanical properties and restrains the practical application of current icephobic surfaces/materials. Here, a generic strategy for icephobic material design is reported to address this conflict through interfacial elastic instability prompted by the synergistic integration of fibrous construction (FC) frameworks with icephobic polymers. The FC‐based material structures could induce periodically localised/amplified stress at the ice/solid interface, leading to interfacial elastic instability and facilitating effective ice detachment. Low ice adhesion strength is achieved, while the tensile strength of the materials is enhanced by 19 times more than the polymer matrix due to the reinforcement from the FC frameworks. Based on the serrated features of the shear forces and numerically simulated interfacial stress distribution, a new theoretical model is established to interpret the nature of interfacial elastic instability and undulatory interfacial stress. This work provides fundamental insights for designing high‐performance icephobic materials that transcend traditional performance trade‐offs, advancing both surface science and materials for practical ice mitigation.