Fabrication of hierarchical Ti6Al4V structures by hydrothermal treatment and laser interference lithography with enhanced ice resistance

Icing widely exists in aerospace, transportation and electric power communication, causing great safety risks to people's production and life. Inhibiting icing is of great significance in practical engineering applications, and thus, employing an economical and efficient anti-icing method is a research hotspot. In this work, an anti-icing structured surface was fabricated by combining direct laser interference lithography (DLIL) with hydrothermal treatment. A micro-pillar array structure on the tc4 substrate was easily fabricated by DLIL, and a layer of nano-grass structure on the micro-pillar array was grown by hydrothermal treatment. These hierarchically textured surfaces exhibited low-temperature-adaptive water repellency (150° at −10°C, which delayed the frozen time (DT∼1h) and dropped frozen temperature. The above conditions were analyzed from the angle of wettability and heat conduction, and the influence of structure and wettability on ice resistance was discussed.