Destructive effects of icing can be observed on many industry areas, e.g., aviation, energetics—wind turbines, or electrical tractions. Ice can lower the efficiency of devices or it may contribute to their destruction, even to aircraft crashes. Due to ice accretion’s influence on the ability of solar devices or wind turbines to produce electricity, many of them need to use systems of ice removal. The removal of ice can be classified into two categories: active and passive solutions. Active solutions are methods of removing ice after it has been deposited (deicing systems); these include mechanical scraping, thermal treatments, and the use of deicing fluids. Unfortunately, all of them need electricity to work. Moreover, they are characterized by low efficiency and high emission of CO
2 or toxic substances to the environment.
3 Therefore, new energy-saving solutions are sought. Passive solutions include treatments that can be applied to a surface prior to its use that would prevent the ice from adhering (antiicing systems). Active methods are currently widely used, but passive methods are cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
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5 There is no known material that can completely prevent ice or snow from accumulating on its surface. Future solutions should be characterized by better mechanical properties, zero electricity consumption, and high efficiency in various weather conditions and should be in the form of durable coatings. One of the possible options may be the use of hydrophobic coatings. Due to excellent adhesion strength, mechanical property, and water and oil resistance of epoxy coating, epoxy resin has become the most popular coating material in the engineering field.
6 Modified epoxy antiicing coatings based on low surface free energy have also received attention from researchers.
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11 Daniel et al. used fully bio-based cardanol-modified epoxy and furfurylamine to react to prepare bio-based epoxy. By adding amino silicone oil as a low surface energy modifier to prepare an easy-to-deicing epoxy antiicing coating, ice coating strength can be as low as ~40 kPa.
12 Using high bonding strength of epoxy to introduce hydrophobic nanoparticles (such as PTFE and fluorinated SiO
2) into coating system, preparation of superhydrophobic coatings can also achieve effect of antiicing and deicing.
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13 Moreover, Rolére et al. described research on perfluorinated carboxylic acids as modifiers for epoxy resins.
14 What is more, they modified different resins with perfluorinated carboxylic acids. In their studies, authors focus on tetra-functional epoxy resin and its surface properties after different curing procedures. Results suggest that curing procedure is a major factor on composite properties.
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15 In the literature, we can find publications that describe only wettability of epoxy resins modified by fluorinated acids without ice adhesion analysis of prepared materials. Glaris et al. described hydrophobicity improvement and modification method of epoxy resin using fluorinated acids,
16 just like Miccio et al., which correlated fluorine content in epoxy resin with obtained water contact angle using different combinations of epoxy resin/hardener and fluorinated acids.
17 It is well known that fluorinated polymers are characterized by low surface free energy and high water contact angle.
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21 Moreover, epoxy resin modification methods using fluorinated compounds also are described.
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23 Few articles present a correlation between chemical structure of fluorinated epoxy resins and ice adhesion properties, which is very important in the case of materials with low ice adhesion preparation for antiicing applications. The most important scientific problem needed to be solved is reducing ice adhesion. Thus, the presented work is focused on research for coating with low ice adhesion preparation and characterization. The mentioned coating material is based on chemical modification of commercial epoxy resin to improve its hydrophobic and ice adhesion properties. The influence of the type of fluorinated modifier and its molecule chain length on modified epoxy resin wettability and ice adhesion has been determined. What is more, the influence of surface chemical composition on surface free energy was established. Additionally, FTIR, DSC, and TGA measurements were carried out to assess chemical composition and thermal parameters of obtained materials.