Victor Petrenko, research professor at the Thayer School of Engineering, yesterday presented his work on airplane wings in a speech to the American Chemical Society in Dallas.
Petrenko has found a method of applying electricity to separate the bond between ice and metals, a discovery which can be used to remove ice from airplane wings.
Petrenko said giving the lecture, titled "The Effect of Contact Potential on Ice Adhesion to Metals," is equivalent to publishing a paper in a scientific journal.
The American Chemical Society is the world's largest scientific society, and there were approximately 10,000 members at the conference. Petrenko had to submit an abstract to be accepted to speak at the conference and he called the acceptance process "very competitive."
Petrenko explained that his new method works by taking advantage of the fact that ice is a semiconductor.
Ice has a high density of electrical charges on its surface, he said. When an electrically-charged surface comes in contact with any other surface, the charged surface induces an opposite charge in the facing surface and the two surfaces are drawn together.
Petrenko said he reasoned that running a small current through the interface of the two materials neutralizes the surfaces and allows them to separate and applying a larger current increases the attraction between them. He was right.
The theory has many applications including de-icing windshields, the wings of airplanes, power lines and off-shore structures. It can also be used to create a better snow tire because it can cause a surface to stick more firmly to ice.
"It is remarkable that by changing the polarity and magnitude of the voltage between ice and metal structures one can increase the ice adhesion and also ice friction," Petrenko said.
Petrenko said that what this technology promises to solve costs the nation several billion dollars annually.
Because of the many industrial applications of his discovery, Petrenko has been approached by several major industrial firms and news organizations.
Petrenko said airline, electrical and research and development companies have already contacted him regarding his research. Block News Alliance, a large corporation which owns over 400 newspapers and magazines including the Boston Globe, released an article on Petrenko's work yesterday to all of its numerous publications.
Petrenko first filed for a patent in June of last year. He has already filed two provisional applications for a patent and now the rights for the technology are not in danger. He said any proceeds from the patent will be split "50-50" between himself and the College, where the research was conducted.
"I hope it will pay back several millions, maybe more, maybe less," Petrenko said.
But he said this discovery is not his best. "I have been published in over 150 publications and have discovered over a dozen new physical phenomena. I consider the sum of my other results more valuable, but industries think differently."
Petrenko made several presentations of his work last fall and winter. The Japanese government is paying for him to spend three months in Japan to teach at Hokkaido University. He will leave next month. Petrenko said that particular university has "a large research facility devoted to researching ice and snow."
Originally from Russia, Petrenko received the Russian equivalent of a Ph.D. and a doctorate of science in Russia. He received his masters from the Moscow Institute of Physics, which he calls "the Russian MIT."
He was originally a semiconductor physicist when, 20 years ago during a trip to England, he learned that ice is a semiconductor. He then became intrigued with ice and started research on its properties. He made a transistor and solar cell solely out of ice.
Petrenko said, "I was very intrigued by the physical mechanisms of ice adhesion." He received funding from the Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation, and he now expects more funding from various industries.
Petrenko said he began researching his current idea two years ago and received decisive results in December while working with the liquid metal mercury.
Petrenko has been researching various ideas at Dartmouth for eight years.
He said the students who work in his laboratory also deserve credit for the discovery. Graduate students Douglas Fifolt and Oleg Nickolaev, Niyaz Khusnatdinov, who received his Ph.D. in engineering from Dartmouth in 1996, Suogen Qi, who graduated from Thayer School last year, Rafael Hernandez '98 and Dominic Germana '98 all work in the laboratory.
Qi said "the results are very exciting." He said the National Science Foundation came to the laboratory recently and made a video with hopes of broadcasting it on a public network.
Germana said Petrenko is "really on top of what is going on in the field" and is "nice to work with."
