A new material for limiting frost formation

Frost—a fluffy member of the ice family that forms when water vapor freezes to a surface—may seem innocuous to many people. But scientists have worked for years to design surfaces that limit its deposition on important infrastructure. Topography and chemistry will affect frost deposition, and researchers in Kyoo-Chul Kenneth Park’s lab at Northwestern University have taken advantage of both to create a new frost-resistant surface ( Sci. Adv. 2024, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adq8525 ). In cold, humid conditions, frost formation is thermodynamically inevitable, Park says. Instead of fighting nature, he designed a 3D-printed honeycomb-like surface texture of thin, micrometer-tall walls to “selectively form the frost.” Because gaseous water molecules diffuse more strongly toward a peak than a valley, Park’s surface forces frost accumulation along the ridges of each hexagonal cell while keeping the cells’ deeper centers dry. Park found that adding a water- absorbing graphene oxide putty to the bottom of each