Carbon Black@PDMS Photothermal Superhydrophobic Coating: A Fluorine-Free Strategy for Efficient Anti-Icing, Deicing, and Anticorrosion

Corrosion and icing pose critical challenges to material durability and operational safety across various industries, yet conventional protective strategies often rely on energy-intensive or environmentally harmful approaches. Herein, we introduce a photothermal superhydrophobic coating as an integrated solution for anti-icing, deicing, and corrosion protection. The coating is fabricated on Q235 carbon steel using a scalable spray-coating approach that relies on fluorine-free components, namely carbon black (CB) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The optimized coating achieves a water contact angle (WCA) and a sliding angle (SA) of 154.2 ± 2.1° and 0.9 ± 0.1° respectively, enabling excellent nonwetting and self-cleaning properties. Upon exposure to 1-sun illumination, the coating rapidly attains a temperature of 106.4 ± 2.4 °C, demonstrating excellent photothermal conversion capability and cycling stability. At −10 °C, the coating delays water freezing to 676 s (compared to 135 s on bare steel) and completely melts frozen droplets within 327 s. The ice adhesion strength measures as low as 17.3 ± 0.1 kPa, which remains 86.1 ± 3.6 kPa even after ten cycles. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) shows 4 orders of magnitude rise in the impedance modulus at the lowest frequency (|Z| 0.01 Hz ), corresponding to a calculated corrosion inhibition efficiency of 99.99%. Additionally, the prepared coating retains its superhydrophobicity after 55 tape-peeling cycles and 240 cm of sandpaper abrasion, and proves applicable to various substrates (metal mesh, glass, wood, and aluminum alloy), achieving steady-state photothermal temperatures between 75.2 and 102.5 °C. This fluorine-free, dual-functional coating offers a promising route toward sustainable anti-icing and anticorrosion applications.