ELECTROSPUN ANTI-ICE COATING FOR PROTECTING AIRCRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL SYSTEMS

Materic’s anti-ice electrospun coating system (“eCOAT”) offers a new solution to the Navy-identified need of preventing aircraft environmental control system components from being vulnerable to freezing/ice formation. The coating will raise the energetic barrier for water’s transformation into ice by disrupting the nucleation kinetics of the system and maximizing the surface hydrophobicity. The coating will use pyroelectric and kinetic-inhibiting polymers, two materials known to disrupt the hydrogen bonding network through charge switching and gas-hydrate formation. Electrospinning these polymers into nanofibers will maximize hydrophobic repulsion of water through dramatic increases in the surface area-to-volume ratio of the resulting material, lowering the surface energy of the coating. Instead of working like existing anti-ice coatings and methodologies, which can help to remove ice from systems once it has formed, Materic’s icephobic technology will modify the surface chemistry of coated ECS components to fully disrupt the transformation of water into ice. The innovation of Materic’s coating is in the coupling of proven chemistries into a single system. Alone, each methodology – pyroelectric materials, kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHI), and electrospinning – has its own limitations. However, Materic has the expertise in advanced materials design and production needed to create a holistic coating product that overcomes these limitations.