Flight delays and millions of dollars of damage due to ice may soon be a thing of the past due to a new de-icing technique developed by Thayer School of Engineering Professor, Victor Petrenko -- and its merits are being touted by top industry executives.
The technique developed by Petrenko, which involves four different manipulating methods, makes use of the electrical properties of ice. It is completely different from previous de-icing techniques that usually involve either heating or chemical agents.
Although Petrenko has patented these techniques in his name, royalties would be split between him, his research team, the College and the Thayer School of Engineering. However, Petrenko told The Dartmouth yesterday that he does not expect to see receive royalties anytime soon.
Explaining his research, Petrenko said in a press statement that "ice adheres to anything, and it's ubiquitous. It's properties make life possible, but it often gets in the way ... Our approach differs from 99 percent of other attempts to solve the ice adhesion problem."
The technology is currently being licensed and developed by several companies for a variety of uses. Petrenko won a Discover Award for Technological Innovation in the aerospace category this year.
BF Goodrich, a leading aerospace company, licensed the rights to the technology for aerospace and marine applications, while Torvec, Inc. has bought the exclusive rights to using the technique on all land-based vehicles and is researching windshield de-icers.
Together with the Thayer School, BF Goodrich is developing a flying prototype de-icer. "This is precisely the type of development that we seek to encourage. It represents a major potential breakthrough not simply an incremental improvement," Dr Jerry Lee, Senior Vice President of Technology and Innovation at BF Goodrich, said.
Also, the New York Power Authority and several Canadian utility companies are developing a system for de-icing power lines. In 1998 an ice storm cost over five billion dollars in damages, largely from damaged lines.
The technique makes use of the fact that ice is a semiconductor with an extremely high density of charge on its surface, which accounts for most of its adhesion. Petrenko studied the effects of varying the electrical properties and the resulting change in the material properties.
He found that by applying a voltage to a metal he could vary the adhesion with ice eventually causing it to break down into oxygen and hydrogen gas.
These gas bubbles would then force the rest of the ice off of the surface, eliminating ice buildup.
The technique requires very little current and produces very little heat, giving it wide applicability.
Another advantage of the technology is its relatively low cost. Petrenko predicts that it will likely only cost about two dollars to cover a square foot of metal.
Currently, for airplanes, de-icing technology uses environmentally hazardous anti-freeze which costs $3,000 a coating and only lasts about six minutes -- a plane may have to be coated up to ten times in a single day.
Since the beginning of his research Petrenko's group has grown to include about ten people, from professors to graduate students. Much of his experimentation was done with Suogen Qi, now a graduate student at the Thayer School. Other improvements were made by Charles Sullivan, Assistant Professor at Thayer and Dr. Lev Deresh, Senior Research Scientist at Thayer.
