Superhydrophobic surfaces demonstrate excellent anti-icing performance under static conditions. However, they show a marked decrease in icing time under real flight conditions. Here we develop an anti-icing strategy using ubiquitous wind field to improve the anti-icing efficiency of superhydrophobic surfaces during flight. We find that the icing mass on hierarchical superhydrophobic surface with a microstructure angle of 30° is at least 40% lower than that on the conventional superhydrophobic plate, which is attributed to the combined effects of microdroplet flow upwelling induced by interfacial airflow and microdroplet ejection driven by superhydrophobic characteristic. Meanwhile, the disordered arrangement of water molecules induced by the specific 30° angle also raises the energy barriers required for nucleation, resulting in an inhibition of the nucleation process. This strategy of microdroplet movement manipulation induced by interfacial airflow is expected to break through the anti-icing limitation of conventional superhydrophobic materials in service conditions and can further reduce the risk of icing on the aircraft surface.

Superhydrophobic coatings treated as surface functional materials are endowed with great application potential with respect to self-cleaning, drag-reduction, anti-icing, etc. In this study, we fabricated a highly flexible and mechanically robust superhydrophobic F-SiO₂@PDMS coating through a facile layer-by-layer strategy. It was demonstrated that PDMS played a crucial role of binder for immobilizing the F-SiO₂ nanoparticles and improving their adhesion to substrate materials. Meanwhile, the PDMS layer endowed the superhydrophobic coating with superior mechanical flexibility. Finally, the as-constructed superhydrophobic coating exhibited excellent water-repellency with a high water contact angle of 156.5° and low sliding angle of only 2.0°. Furthermore, the water adhesion strength on the superhydrophobic coating was only 2 μN, indicating its ultralow viscous resistance to dynamic moving water droplets. The superhydrophobic F-SiO₂@PDMS coating was independent of the substrates without any limitations, and they exhibited high flexibility and mechanical robustness with the elongation ratio reaching 83.3% under the conditions of high superhydrophobicity. Also, the superhydrophobic coating exhibited strong durability under the severe environments of corrosion and mechanical abrasion. Thus, the as-fabricated highly flexible and mechanically robust superhydrophobic F-SiO₂@PDMS coating is considered to be an ideal candidate for applications in the fields of self-cleaning and drag-reduction.