Review on Interfacial Frosting and Anti-/Defrosting Techniques

Interfacial frosting is ubiquitous in daily life and has many industrial applications. Owing to the poor heat transfer performance induced by packed air pockets, the frost layer usually manifests itself as a thick porous medium, which compromises the operational effectiveness of heat exchangers. Despite extensive studies spanning centuries, condensation frosting has achieved significant advancement only in the last decade. These advancements include the discovery of new physical features during condensation frosting that were too fast or too small to be captured and the development of new anti-/defrosting techniques. This study aims to provide a comprehensive up-to-date review on condensation frosting, particularly its progress in the last decade. The stages of condensation frosting, namely, condensation nucleation, growth of condensed microdrops, icing nucleation, formation of frost halos, frost spreading via ice bridging, and the final densification process, are introduced chronologically. Recent engineering efforts to solve the frosting problem, either by anti-frosting or defrosting, are also discussed. This review sheds light on the existing understanding of condensation frosting and promotes the development of anti-/defrosting techniques.