A film capable of preventing icing solely through sunlight has been developed domestically. This technology enables anti-icing and de-icing (film coating) functions by applying the photothermal effect of gold nanoparticles in industrial settings without the need for heating wires, periodic spraying and oil application, or substrate design changes.
KAIST announced on the 3rd that a joint interdisciplinary research team consisting of Professor Hyeongsoo Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Donggi Yoon from the Department of Chemistry has secured a core technology that can uniformly pattern gold nanorod particles into quadrants through simple evaporation, and developed an anti-icing and de-icing surface.
(From left) Hyungsoo Kim, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST; Donggi Yoon, Professor of Chemistry; Jungsoo Pyeon, PhD candidate; Sunmo Park, PhD from Cornell University. Courtesy of KAIST
Recently, research on controlling the properties of target surfaces through various coating techniques has been active. In particular, functional nanomaterial patterning has attracted attention in the same field.
Among them, gold nanorods (GNR) are considered one of the promising nanomaterials due to their stable yet unique characteristics such as biocompatibility, chemical stability, relatively easy synthesis, and surface plasmon resonance.
To maximize the performance of gold nanorods, it is important to achieve a high level of uniformity in the deposited film and alignment of the gold nanorods, and efforts to realize this have been ongoing.
The joint research team solved this problem by utilizing cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), a next-generation functional nanomaterial easily extracted from nature.
They succeeded in developing a gold nanorod film uniformly aligned in a ring shape over the entire coated area by co-self-assembling gold nanorods on a cellulose nanocrystal quadrant template and drying it uniformly.
The gold nanorod film obtained in this study, with high uniformity and alignment, exhibits enhanced plasmonic optical and photothermal performance compared to conventional coffee-ring films. This is the experimental proof by the research team that it can perform anti-icing and de-icing roles solely by irradiating light in the visible wavelength range.
Professor Hyeongsoo Kim of KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering said, “The technology developed by the joint research team can be fabricated on plastic and flexible surfaces, enabling it to generate heat energy by itself when applied to exterior materials and films. Through this, it is expected to provide energy-saving effects by spontaneously harvesting thermal energy in winter problems such as car frost, aircraft de-icing, and glass windows in residential/commercial spaces.”
Professor Donggi Yoon of KAIST’s Department of Chemistry emphasized, “This research is meaningful in that the nanocellulose-gold particle composite, which was difficult to film previously, can be freely patterned on a large scale for use as an anti-icing material, and by utilizing the plasmonic properties of gold, it can be used like stained glass decorating glass.”
Doctoral candidates Jeongsoo Pyeon and Sunmo Park (KAIST graduate, currently a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University) from KAIST’s Department of Mechanical Engineering participated as co-first authors in the joint research team. The research results were also published online in the December 8 issue of the international journal Nature Communications.
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