Fabrication of Micron-Structured Heatable Graphene Hydrophobic Surfaces for Deicing and Anti-Icing by Laser Direct Writing

As a novel method to prepare graphene, the laser-induced graphene (LIG) technology has numerous outstanding properties and has been widely applied in various fields. Nevertheless, the challenge remains to easily and efficiently prepare multifunctional surfaces of graphene through laser microregulation and fine structure design. Here, we successfully fabricated a micron-structure gully graphene surface with hydrophobicity and electrothermal functionality under atmospheric conditions using a 10.6 μm CO₂ laser to directly write on the surface of a polyimide film (PI). The impact of the laser scanning speed on the surface morphology and chemical composition of the product was investigated by analyzing the SEM (scanning electron microscope) observations and Raman spectra, respectively. The mechanical stability of the surface was studied by analyzing the contact angle of water droplets on the surface after mechanical circulation and the delayed icing effect after repeated icing. The deicing and anti-icing performance of the surface were analyzed based on its resistance to surface icing and electric deicing time. According to the experimental results, we first observed a linear negative correlation between the generated structure linewidth and the laser scanning speed. Additionally, we successfully achieved one-step preparation of primitive continuous graphene structures with a superhydrophobic capability (151°). Furthermore, our findings indicate that micron-structured graphene surfaces exhibit excellent mechanical stability, effectively delay icing formation, and demonstrate efficient electric deicing effects. These results demonstrate the potential application of CO₂ laser-induced graphene technology in the field of surface preparation for deicing and anti-icing. This work offers a novel one-step approach for the fabrication of micron-structured heatable graphene surfaces with simultaneous superhydrophobicity, deicing, and anti-icing functionalities on polymer substrates.