Marco Marengo (University of Brighton, United Kingdom). Drop Impact, Ice Formation, Wettability Effects: a Pathway to Icing Mitigation.

Ice formation has long been recognised as one of the most serious hazard for safety and for functioning of systems in diverse areas such as transportation, power and communication systems and infrastructures. The control of drop behaviour at the interface through the tailoring of surface wetting properties represents a great scientific and technological challenge and opportunity, which can be used as a strategy to control and mitigate ice formation on surfaces. Understanding the interaction mechanism between drops and solid surfaces in non-freezing and freezing conditions, focusing on the effects of surface wetting and topography on ice nucleation, and on wetting behaviour of superhydrophobic surfaces in icing conditions, highlights the physical process of ice formation and the influence of wettability on ice.