A facile electrochemical machining process to fabricate superhydrophobic surface on iron materials and its applications in anti-icing

Iron materials are widely applied in electrical-tower. However, the freezing rain adhering to the electric-tower in winter can raise a huge potential safety hazard to the power facilities. Therefore, how to make ironworks possess anti-icing property has become a difficult problem. In order to resolve the aforementioned issue, a facile, low-cost and environment-friendly electrochemical machining method was developed to fabricate superhydrophobic surface on iron materials to endow anti-icing capacity in the freezing rain. After fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) modification, superhydrophobic surface could be obtained. The morphology of the surface film was examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and laser confocal microscope. The chemical composition was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The influence of the applied processing time on wettability was also studied. The results showed that a rough surface, which consisted of many step-like structures, was formed on the surface of iron by the proposed electrochemical method. After FAS modification, the surface showed good superhydrophobicity with the water contact angle of 162° and water sliding angle of 3.33°. The mechanism of the generated rough structures was also discussed. Moreover, the static and dynamic anti-icing tests were conducted. The results showed that the superhydrophobic surface can not only significantly delay the freezing time, but also prevent the cold water from freezing on the iron surface, which could be a good solution to the freezing rain issue.