“Essential for preventing costly mechanical breakdowns”

A surface design inspired by leaf patterns can prove lifesaving by preventing power outages caused by frost build-up – and its applications don’t stop there.

The Northwestern University study found that adjusting the texture of surfaces to resemble leaves—whose concave veins don’t collect frost—stopped frost formation for at least a week, making their method 1,000 times more durable than the state-of-the-art. anti-freeze surfaces, according to a press release from school.

To achieve this, the team applied a very thin layer of graphene oxide in the “veins”. The film is scalable, making it a versatile solution for anti-freeze needs and also resistant to contamination, fractures and scratches. The team believes its freeze-prevention technique could save companies and government agencies billions in maintenance costs and energy efficiency.

“The 2021 power crisis in Texas cost $195 billion in damages, directly resulting from over 160 hours of frost, ice and extreme cold conditions. Therefore, it is essential to develop antifreeze techniques that are robust for long periods of time under extreme environmental conditions,” study leader Kyoo-Chul Kenneth Park explicitly.

Frostbite isn’t just an expensive annoyance, according to Northwestern researchers he pointed out. Without anti-icing technologies, air travel would become dangerous or grind to a halt, potentially causing problems in the global supply chain or preventing connectivity opportunities.

De-icing is also essential to keep power grids operational during the winter the stormswho have become more intense due to the increase in global temperature.

Like extreme heat, extreme cold can be deadly. In 2021, as a study made available The National Library of Medicine notes that the Texas outage has resulted in hundreds of deaths, including from hypothermia, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

More like NASA saya century plus of research indicates that humans are causing this problematic warmingespecially with pollution from burning gas, oil and coal. With most of the world still addicted on dirty fuels, increasing energy efficiency would result in less harmful pollution entering the atmosphere.

“The development of new anti-freeze techniques is crucial to prevent costly mechanical failures, energy inefficiencies and safety hazards for critical operations,” Park. said in release. “… With our new insights, we could design power lines and airplane wings with low grip on ice. These types of changes would greatly reduce annual maintenance costs.”

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The latest discovery by Northwestern scientists is a follow-up to 2020 research from Park’s lab, which also focused on leaf geometry, with computer simulations and experimental work helping to map condensation and evaporation patterns.

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