Hydrogel, as one of potential soft materials for articular cartilage, has encountered pressing obstacles, such as insufficient mechanical properties, poor lubrication, and easy to wear. To tackle these, we propose a s...Hydrogel, as one of potential soft materials for articular cartilage, has encountered pressing obstacles, such as insufficient mechanical properties, poor lubrication, and easy to wear. To tackle these, we propose a strong yet slippery polyvinyl alcohol/chitosan (PVA/CS) hydrogel with dual-physically crosslinked networks by harnessing freeze-thawing, salting-out, annealing, and rehydration. High mechanical properties of PVA/CS hydrogel can be readily regulated by adjusting proportion of PVA/CS and annealing temperature. The optimized hydrogel exhibits high mechanical properties with tensile strength of ∼ 19 MPa at strain of 550%, compression strength of ∼ 11 MPa at small strain of 39%, and outstanding toughness and antifatigue owing to the robust physical interactions, including hydrogen bonds, crystallization, and ionic coordination. Moreover, the equilibrium hydrogel shows low friction coefficient of ∼ 0.05 against Al_(2)O_(3) ball under the condition of 30 N, 1 Hz, with water as the tribological medium, which is close to the lubrication performance of native cartilage. And meanwhile, the proposed cartilage-like slippery hydrogel displays stable long-term lubrication performance for 1 × 10^(5) reciprocating cycles without destructive wear and structure damage. It is therefore believed that the biocompatible cartilage-like slippery hydrogel opens innovative scenarios for developing cartilage-mimicking water-lubricated coating and biomedical implants with satisfactory load-bearing and lubrication performance.展开更多
基金financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China(No.2022YFB4600101)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.52175201 and 52205228)+6 种基金the Science Fund of Shangdong Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Green Manufacturing at Yantai(No.AMGM2024F12)the Research Program of Science and Technology Department of Gansu Province(No.22JR5RA107)the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation(No.ZR2023OE090)the Major Program(No.ZYFZFX-2)the Cooperation Foundation for Young Scholars(No.HZJJ23-02)of the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics,CASthe Taishan Scholars Programthe Special Research Assistant Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
文摘Hydrogel, as one of potential soft materials for articular cartilage, has encountered pressing obstacles, such as insufficient mechanical properties, poor lubrication, and easy to wear. To tackle these, we propose a strong yet slippery polyvinyl alcohol/chitosan (PVA/CS) hydrogel with dual-physically crosslinked networks by harnessing freeze-thawing, salting-out, annealing, and rehydration. High mechanical properties of PVA/CS hydrogel can be readily regulated by adjusting proportion of PVA/CS and annealing temperature. The optimized hydrogel exhibits high mechanical properties with tensile strength of ∼ 19 MPa at strain of 550%, compression strength of ∼ 11 MPa at small strain of 39%, and outstanding toughness and antifatigue owing to the robust physical interactions, including hydrogen bonds, crystallization, and ionic coordination. Moreover, the equilibrium hydrogel shows low friction coefficient of ∼ 0.05 against Al_(2)O_(3) ball under the condition of 30 N, 1 Hz, with water as the tribological medium, which is close to the lubrication performance of native cartilage. And meanwhile, the proposed cartilage-like slippery hydrogel displays stable long-term lubrication performance for 1 × 10^(5) reciprocating cycles without destructive wear and structure damage. It is therefore believed that the biocompatible cartilage-like slippery hydrogel opens innovative scenarios for developing cartilage-mimicking water-lubricated coating and biomedical implants with satisfactory load-bearing and lubrication performance.
