Anti-icing performances of super hydrophobic insulator

Icing on transmission line threats to the safe operation of power grid. At present widely used coatings including RTV coating have the hydrophobic property whose contact angle is about 110º and cannot have good anti-icing effect. Here super-hydrophobic surface whose contact angle is about 150º and contact angle hysteresis less than 5º is prepared and its anti-icing characteristic is detected. The leakage current test in time-domain and frequency-domain, ultraviolet imaging test and AC icing flashover voltage test are adopted. Results show that compared with RTV coating, the super-hydrophobic surface owns less leakage current, fewer ultraviolet photons and higher AC flashover voltage which shows great application potential of super-hydrophobic surface in external insulation field.