Anti-Ice Coating Inspired by Antarctic Fish Blood

Innovation: Academia

UCLA & University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

2021

Image: Xavier Balderas Cejudo / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Protect From Ice

Freezing temperatures can be difficult for living systems to manage. They can cause ice crystals to form in blood and tissues, which causes damage to cells and ultimately, death. Living systems can’t afford the energy required to melt ice crystals, so instead, many have strategies to prevent crystals from forming in the first place. Many amphibians, plants, and insects have chemicals that act as antifreeze to prevent icy crystal formation. Another challenge ice presents is that it creates a slick surface, requiring friction to traverse. This is why polar bears’ paws have a rough surface that grips ice.

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Protect From Temperature

Many living systems function best within specific temperature ranges. Temperatures higher or lower than that range can negatively impact a living system’s physiological or chemical processes, and damage its exterior or interior. Living systems must manage high or low temperatures using minimal energy, which often requires controlling responses along incremental temperature changes. To do so, living systems use a variety of strategies, such as avoiding high or low temperatures, removing excess heat, and holding heat in. Insulation is a well-known example of managing low temperatures by retaining heat using thick layers of hair, fur, or feathers to hold warm air next to the skin.

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Coating from UCLA and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences is a hydrogel that inhibits the formation of ice using three anti-ice mechanisms.

Benefits

Versatile
Durable
Multifunctional

Applications

Automobiles
Aviation
Plumbing

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 9: Industry Innovation & Infrastructure

The Challenge

Undesired icing on surfaces can cause many safety issues, especially for aviation, during which ineffective de-icing could cause mechanical issues and even result in a plane crashing. Most anti-icing materials are expensive and only effective against one type of ice formation. For example, if the an anti-ice technique only lowers a liquid’s freezing point, the fluid can still attach to the surface and freeze if temperatures become colder.

Innovation Details

The coating is made of a polyelectrolyte hydrogel that is able to tackle the three main ice formation processes. First, the hydrogel inhibits ice nucleation (the way water vapor is usually triggered into freezing) with polyelectrolyte brushes controlled by ion specificity. Then, it prevents ice propagation by lowering the freezing temperature for water that touches it. Lastly, it makes the surface harder to grab onto by decreasing the ice adhesion strength. Altogether, this multifunctional material effectively prevents ice formation.

Biomimicry Story

Antartic fish have anti-freeze proteins in their blood that help them survive in the subfreezing habitats they live in. Not only do these proteins reduce the potential for ice crystal formation by lowering the freezing point of their blood and body fluids, they also attach to ice crystals that manage to form, which prevents them from propagating or growing larger.

See Related Strategy

Biological Strategy

Eye Lens Proteins Adapted for Clarity in Extreme Cold

Giant Antarctic cod

The eye lens of the Antarctic toothfish avoids cold-cataracts at temperatures cold enough to freeze sea water by maintaining the right concentration of three isoforms of crytallin proteins.

Biological Strategy

Glycoprotein Prevents Ice Crystals

The blood of some Antarctic ice fishes resists freezing via a glycoprotein that lowers the temperature at which ice crystals enlarge.

References

Journal article

Bioinspired Multifunctional Anti-icing Hydrogel

Matter

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