Project description
Smart surfaces offer a cooler way to fight ice
Ice may look harmless, but when it builds up on aircraft, power lines, or wind turbines, it can pose serious risks and lead to costly disruptions. Traditional de-icing methods, which rely on high heat, consume large amounts of energy and can damage materials. Passive methods, though energy-efficient, aren’t enough on their own. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the BSAI project is tackling this by mimicking nature. Inspired by how some animals manage water on their skin, researchers are developing a smart surface that sheds ice by altering its wettability. Add a gentle heat gradient, and the process becomes up to 90 % quicker than conventional methods. This could revolutionise how we keep vital infrastructure ice-free.
Objective
Novel and efficient anti-icing/de-icing methods should be continuously explored because ice accumulation has dramatic adverse effects on human activities. Traditional thermal de-icing, as an active technique extensively used in the industry, requires enormous energy input and may deteriorate the functionality of wall material such as epoxies or resins if the temperature is too high. Passive de-icing methods cannot work alone for safety concerns, although they do not require external energy inputs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to integrate the active de-icing method with the passive one, leading to a hybrid anti-icing/de-icing approach. Inspired by natural creatures who usually use their surface structures to realize directional liquid transport for survival, a spontaneous self-dislodging approach of ice is proposed by artificially varying the surface wettability without external energy input. The de-icing performance of this method can be further enhanced by imposing a temperature gradient. Compared with the traditional thermal de-icing method, the required de-icing time can be reduced by more than 90% based on the applicant’s test cases of this novel hybrid anti-icing/de-icing method that has not previously been proposed. A mathematical model that will be validated by performing Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations will be built to quantify the effects of wettability and temperature variations on the de-icing performance of this novel method. This work will shed light on the design of intrinsically icephobic materials.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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28040 Madrid
Spain
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