Fabrication and investigation superhydrophobic micro/nanoscaled hierarchical structure coating on brass with evaluation of the anti-icing, corrosion resistance and wetting properties

Ice formation on surfaces, especially in cold and industrial environments, cause reducing efficiency and increasing energy consumption. Existing methods for dealing with ice include electrothermal, infrared, and mechanical heating systems, despite being effective, have limitations due to high costs and environmental incompatibility. As a sustainable alternative, anti-icing coatings based on copper oxide have been considered due to their delayed freezing time. In this study, micro/nanoscaled hierarchical structures coated on brass substrates and optimized by hydrothermal and immersion methods. In this work, brass substrates and copper chloride, and stearic acid as a surface modifier were used. The effect of various parameters on the anti-icing property using Taguchi experimental design were investigated, which included etching time, molar ratio of urea to copper chloride, and reaction time. The contact angle test results showed angles of 163.4 and its dynamic contact angle (DCA) of 2.7° and 158° and its DCA 5.7° for the optimum hydrothermal and immersion synthesized samples, respectively. Freezing of water droplets on the optimum hydrothermal and immersion samples occurred after 1748 and 548.6 seconds, respectively, while the raw brass sample freezing occurred after only 21.6 seconds. The required shear stress to separate ice from the surface of the hydrothermal and the immersion coating were measured to be 88.93 and 94.43 kPa, respectively, while this value was 240.4 kPa for the raw brass sample. The results of potentiodynamic electrochemical corrosion showed that the current density of the optimum hydrothermal sample compared to the optimum immersion sample and the raw brass sample were -4.44, -3.78, and -3.5 A.cm-2, respectively, which increased corrosion resistance with decreasing current density.