Long-Term Stability of a Liquid-Infused Coating with Anti-Corrosion and Anti-Icing Potentials on Al Alloy

Corrosion and surface icing severely shorten the service life of aluminum and its alloys. Herein, we synthesized wrinkled and porous, hollow, tubular SiO2 on an Al alloy, followed by fluorination with (Heptadecafluoro-1,1,2,2-tetradecyl) trimethoxysilane (FAS) and then infusing Krytox 100 for obtaining novel slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPSs). The unique structure greatly reduced the loss of lubricant due to the volatilization or subcooled condensation and thus effectively extended the life of the SLIPS. The corrosion resistance of as-prepared SLIPS was five orders of magnitude higher than that of the bare Al alloy and did not change significantly after immersion in an NaCl solution for 93 days. The ice-adhesion strength remained at approximately 18 kPa for the whole duration of the icing/deicing cycles. The samples exhibited a low contact angle hysteresis and superior self-cleaning properties. In addition, we also revealed the differences in self-cleaning and anti-icing macroscopic phenomena of superhydrophobic surfaces (SHS) and SLIPS.