Next generation anti icing technologies - addressing a quintessential Canadian problem

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Infrastructure constructed in colder climates is destined to experience stresses consistent with freezing or below freezing temperatures. These conditions impose higher maintenance costs, limited lifetimes and in the case of production facilities (e.g. oil and gas rigs, pipelines or wind turbines) revenue loss is essentially assured. Continued ice build up exacerbates infrastructure downtime, worker health and safety and ultimately economic loss and this problem is, not surprisingly, ubiquitous to colder climates. The only effective methods currently employed for removing/preventing ice build up are active technologies such as resistive heating or vibration of the infrastructure. These are not sustainable deicing methods because of the energy required to implement them. There are no apparent new or emerging passive technologies on or coming to the market. A key industry where anti-ice coatings would serve as a substantial benefit is in the wind turbine market (related industry: Aerospace). Given that the Federal Government has a target to generate 90% of Canada's electricity from non emitting sources by 2020, without a doubt, the wind turbine industry will witness continued expansion over the next 5 to 10 years. However, the wind turbine industry suffers substantial down time because of ice related problems. In this context, this proposal for a Collaborative Research and Development Grant aims to apply a wholly new and innovative way to investigate and potentially remedy the ice accumulation problems within the wind turbine industry. Given the versatility of our new approach to both the application of innovative materials and measurement techniques, it is expected that any progress achieved in this arena could be extended to other areas of economic interest. The wide adoption of this technology will generate employment for Canadians in the materials and manufacturing sectors, and will put Canada at the leading edge of icephobic technology, which we would expect to be adopted globally.