| Project Detail |
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) aims to eliminate ice/snow/frost accretion on stationary and mobile electrified systems by developing a multi-functional coating that synergistically combines two different ice/snow/frost removal mechanisms. The team will incorporate pulsed interfacial heating with controlled surface wettability to demonstrate a two orders of magnitude reduction in ice/snow/frost removal time with 50% lower energy consumption without bulk melting compared with state-of-the-art steady heating methods. The team aims to melt only an ultra-thin layer of ice/snow/frost while the remaining ice/snow/frost is removed with the aid of gravity or shear forces (e.g., wind). The team aims to scale up and validate their technology on an electrified aircraft. In addition, the proposed coating and pulsed interfacial heating strategy will have broad applicability on cutting-edge renewable energy devices and systems (e.g., PVs, wind turbines, etc.) that are particularly affected by ice/show/frost aggregation.
Potential Impact:
The proposed technology requires less energy and it can be 1000X faster than conventional defrosting methods. |
