Spontaneous self-dislodging of freezing water droplets and the role of wettability.

ABSTRACT: Spontaneous removal of liquid, solidifying liquid and solid forms of matter from surfaces, is of significant importance in nature and technology, where it finds applications ranging from self-cleaning to icephobicity and to condensation systems. However, it is a great challenge to understand fundamentally the complex interaction of rapidly solidifying, typically supercooled, droplets with surfaces, and to harvest benefit from it for the design of intrinsically icephobic materials. Here we report and explain an ice removal mechanism that manifests itself simultaneously with freezing, driving gradual self-dislodging of droplets cooled via evaporation and sublimation (low environmental pressure) or convection (atmospheric pressure) from substrates. The key to successful self-dislodging is tha

SUBMITTER: Graeber G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5651746 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature