Nanoscale correlations of ice adhesion strength and water contact angle

Abstract

Surfaces with low ice adhesion represent a promising strategy to achieve passive anti-icing performance. However, as a successful and robust low ice adhesion surface must be tested under realistic conditions at low temperatures and for several types of ice, the initial screening of potential low ice adhesion surfaces requires large resources. A theoretical relation between ice adhesion and water wettability in the form of water contact angle exists, but there is disagreement on whether this relation holds for experiments. In this study, we utilised molecular dynamics simulations to examine the fundamental relations between ice adhesion and water contact angle on an ideal graphene surface. The results show a significant correlation according to the theoretic predictions, indicating that the theoretical relation holds for the ice and water when discarding surface material deformations and other experimental factors. The reproduction of the thermodynamic theory at the nanoscale is important due to the gap between experimental observations and theoretical models. The results in this study represent a step forward towards understanding the fundamental mechanisms of water-solid and ice-solid interactions, and the relationship between them.