Experimental investigation of frosting behavior on superhydrophobic copper surface prepared by thermal evaporation Method

Abstract

An experimental study is proposed to analyze the frosting behavior of ice on a superhydrophobic surface. Ice accumulation can result in performance problems and safety concerns for transmission lines, marine and offshore structures, refrigeration, cryogenics, wind turbines, and heat-exchangers. Wetting properties are important for ice formation on surfaces from the liquid phase, where the water repellency of the surfaces could enhance their anti-icing effect. Such surfaces will be prepared by using a nanotextured coating. A thermal evaporation system will be proposed for nanocoating on a copper surface. The prepared surface produces a contact angle of 162° ± 2°. The Low Bond Asymmetric Drop Shape analysis is used to measure the contact angle using imageJ software. The heat-transfer performance of an evaporator is affected by frost formation. In this work, the heat-transfer coefficient of the surface will be estimated in the defrosting process. The effect of hydrophobicity and superhydrophobicity of surfaces, surface chemistry, morphology, and roughness scale will be studied on the defrosting process. In particular, wetting characteristics of the superhydrophobic surfaces revealed defrosting performance. The experiments will be performed in controlled environmental conditions. The anti-icing properties of superhydrophobic surfaces with different topography but similar chemistry are studied.