Ice accretion on airplane surfaces, power lines, or wind turbines can cause operational difficulties and disastrous
events. Great efforts have been made to develop environmentally-friendly anti-icing or deicing surfaces over the
last several decades, but a high-efficient, robust, and energy-saving surface for both anti-icing and deicing still
remains a challenge. Herein, a sunlight-responsive and robust anti-icing/deicing coating is designed by integrating
photothermogenic nanocarbon fibers with an amphiphilic material, which is based on hydrophobic
polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and hydrophilic polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) segments. The resultant coating represents
an excellent and energy-saving anti-icing/deicing performance: a 34-fold increase of freezing delay time
compared with control steel and ~18 KPa of ice adhesion strength enabling easy removal by a natural wind
action, attributable to the intrinsic material properties (the ability of PVP to depress water freezing point and the
low surface energy of PDMS). Moreover, nanocarbon fibers can further reduce the ice adhesion strength and
endow the coating with a rapidly sunlight-sensitive photothermal deicing performance (up to 10 °C/min),
presenting the superiority of outdoor applications especially for high-altitude equipment and vehicles. After 30
icing-deicing cycle, simulated acid rain (pH = 0) scouring, sand dropping, and 200 abrasion cycle tests, this
coating also exhibits an extraordinary durability and robustness. This work makes a promising anti-icing and
deicing coating for a large-scale operation and practical applications in particular outdoors.