Electrostatic defrosting (EDF) uses a charged copper plate held above frost to pull ionic defects and make frost particles detach and jump toward the plate. In lab tests, a passive plate removed ~15% of frost, 120 V removed ~40%, 550 V ~50%, and with a superhydrophobic insulating substrate the team reached ~75% removal. Higher voltages initially reduced effectiveness due to charge leakage, a problem the researchers mitigated by changing the substrate. The technique is promising but early-stage, did not reach 100% removal, and will require further work on safety and practical deployment.
High-Voltage Copper Plate Makes Frost 'Jump': A Promising New Approach to Deicing
Electrostatic defrosting (EDF) uses a charged copper plate held above frost to pull ionic defects and make frost particles detach and jump toward the plate. In lab tests, a passive plate removed ~15% of frost, 120 V removed ~40%, 550 V ~50%, and with a superhydrophobic insulating substrate the team reached ~75% removal. Higher voltages initially reduced effectiveness due to charge leakage, a problem the researchers mitigated by changing the substrate. The technique is promising but early-stage, did not reach 100% removal, and will require further work on safety and practical deployment.
09:40 AM, 11/15/2025Technology
High-Voltage Copper Plate Makes Frost 'Jump'
As winter returns, the idyllic fun of snow often gives way to the chore of removing frost from windshields, heat pumps and other surfaces. Researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a novel technique called electrostatic defrosting (EDF) that uses an electrically charged copper plate to coax frost particles off surfaces by manipulating charges at the molecular level.
How electrostatic defrosting works
EDF takes advantage of ionic defects that naturally occur as ice forms. When ice crystals grow, hydrogen ions can be misaligned, creating regions of slight positive and negative charge. The Virginia Tech team found that these charge imbalances can be influenced by an external electric field: a positively charged plate held a short distance above a frosted surface draws negatively charged regions upward, while pushing positive regions downward, causing small frost fragments to detach and 'jump' toward the plate.
Key experiments and results
In laboratory trials the researchers hovered a copper plate over artificially grown frost and measured how much frost mass was removed under different conditions. A plate with no applied voltage removed about 15% of the frost within minutes. Applying 120 V increased removal to roughly 40%, and 550 V produced about 50% removal. Unexpectedly, higher voltages initially reduced performance: at 1,100 V removal fell to 30% and at 5,500 V it dropped to 20% due to charge leakage from the system.
By growing frost on a highly insulating, air-trapping superhydrophobic substrate (which prevented charge leakage), the team restored the electric-field effect and achieved up to 75% frost removal. The researchers captured the detachment events using high-speed imaging and described their findings in the journal Small Methods.
Limitations and practical considerations
The method remains early-stage and did not achieve 100% removal in experiments. Even a thin residual film of ice can be hazardous in real-world settings. The approach also relies on careful control of the substrate and insulation to prevent charge leakage, and any practical implementation would need to address electrical safety and power-delivery challenges at scale.
‘‘We really thought we were onto something here. Keep turning up the voltage and more frost will jump away, right? What was unexpected was when the opposite happened.’’ — Jonathan Boreyko, Virginia Tech (study co-author)
Outlook
Despite limitations, electrostatic defrosting is a promising direction for energy-efficient deicing. With further research to optimize surface materials, device geometry and safe power delivery, EDF could become a lower-energy alternative to chemical deicers and large heaters for applications ranging from automobile windshields and residential heat pumps to aircraft surfaces.