Icing performances of super-hydrophobic PDMS/Nano-silica hybrid coating on insulators

This paper presented a novel polydimethylsiloxane /nano-silica (PDMS/nano-silica) hybrid super-hydrophobic coating for anti-icing on insulators. Average water contact angle on the super-hydrophobic PDMS/nano-silica hybrid coating reached 161⁰. The super-hydrophobic PDMS/nano-silica hybrid coating had a rough surface with micro/nanometer dual-size structure. Icing experiment was carried out to investigate the anti-icing properties of the super-hydrophobic coating on insulator strings. AC icing flashover voltages of the two types of insulator strings were investigated. Results showed that the super-hydrophobic PDMS/nano-silica hybrid super-hydrophobic coating excellently restrained the icing on insulator strings. The AC flashover voltage of the ice coated insulator string with the super-hydrophobic PDMS/nano-silica hybrid coating was 100 kV which was higher than that of the ice coated insulator string with RTV silicone rubber coating.