Icephobic surfaces are of significant interest for the aeronautics, renewable energy, and refrigeration industries. These surfaces enhance the efficiency of such systems and ensure greater safety—one needs only to consider aircraft, which must operate reliably even under the most extreme weather conditions. Until now, the technology behind these surfaces has relied on coatings that can be fragile and prone to degradation over time.

Until now, it was believed that cysteine, one of the basic amino acids in proteins, bonded to surfaces mainly through its carboxylic group. A team at DESY NanoLab (Germany), led by Heshmat Noei in collaboration with Cristiana Di Valentin’s group (University of Milano-Bicocca), has now discovered that the molecule actually uses all three of its “chemical arms” − amine, carboxylic, and thiol − to adhere to oxide surfaces, particularly titanium dioxide (TiO2).