@article{Hu2024, 
author = {Danli Hu and Desheng Liu and Yue Hu and Yixian Wang and Yaozhong Lu and Changcheng Bai and Khan Rajib Hossain and Pan Jiang and Xiaolong Wang},
title = {Dual-physical network PVA hydrogel commensurate with articular cartilage bearing lubrication enabled by harnessing nanoscale crystalline domains},
year = {2024},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {17},
number = {11},
pages = {9784-9795},
keywords = {slippery hydrogel, bio-lubrication, high load-bearing, salting-out and annealing, abrasion resistance},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.1007/s12274-024-6968-8},
doi = {10.1007/s12274-024-6968-8},
abstract = {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 anti-fatigue 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 Al2O3 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 × 105 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.}
}