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Surface defrosting in a second

11.09.2019

A group of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) and the University of Kyushu (Japan) have developed a method for very fast and efficient removal of ice from surfaces, which consumes less than 1% of energy and copes with the task a hundred times faster than traditional defrosting methods.

Instead of the usual defrosting, in which all the ice melts from top to bottom, starting from the top layer, scientists have developed a method in which ice melts ice "from the inside": at the junction of ice and the surface. So in the lower layer water is formed, on which the ice cap slides.

The researchers decided to develop a new method of defrosting because current methods consume huge amounts of energy in refrigeration systems due to the need for periodic defrosting and the energy systems of buildings. According to the authors, the biggest source of inefficiency in conventional systems is that most of the energy used to process "antifreeze" is used to heat other components of the system, rather than heating ice or ice.

So the scientists proposed to apply a pulse of very strong current to the place where the ice and the surface meet to form a layer of water. To ensure that the pulse reaches the correct space and does not affect the top layer, a thin coating of indium tin oxide (ITO), a semiconductor film often used for thawing, is applied to the surface of the material. Gravity does the rest.

To test their method, the scientists thawed a small glass surface chilled to minus 15,1 degrees Celsius - about the same temperature in the warmest parts of Antarctica - and minus 71 degrees Celsius - which is even colder than in the coldest regions of Antarctica. . A test with very low temperatures made it possible to check whether the new method can be applied in the aerospace industry. In all tests, the ice was removed using a current pulse in less than one second.

The group has yet to test their method on more difficult surfaces, such as aircraft wings. But this is a matter of the near future.

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