Meeting Abstract

P1.96  Friday, Jan. 4  Development of Bio-Inspired Surfaces to Prevent Ice Formation MEHRABANI, H; TSE, K.L.*; RAY, N.A.; EVANGELISTA, D.A.; Univ. of California, Berkeley; Univ. of California, Berkeley; Univ. of California, Berkeley; Univ. of California, Berkeley hmehrabani5110@gmail.com

Growth of ice on surfaces poses a serious challenge for both organisms and devices that come into contact with liquids below the freezing point. Resistance of some organisms to ice formation and growth, either in subtidal environments, such as Antarctic anchor ice, or in environments with moisture and cold air, such as plants, begs examination of how this is accomplished. To examine the effect of surface texture alone, we tested four candidate surfaces, inspired by hard-shelled marine invertebrates and constructed by three-dimensional printing processes. We developed a new experiment to examine ice formation from surface droplets as encountered in environments with moist, cold air. We compared these to results from adopted assays from previous literature designed to screen for ice formation and accretion in submerged conditions. While most surfaces promoted ice formation relative to a flat control surface, grid patterns, corresponding to the freshwater clam Mya arenaria, inhibited the time of ice formation by up to 6%, depending on pattern parameters. Surface texture, rather than surface area, appears important in ice formation. However, this does not explain by itself the large variation in ice formation observed in other studies. This suggests examination of additional factors, such as material properties and coatings, and their interaction with surface patterns.