Abstract
Synovial fluid is made up of various biomacromolecules, including hyaluronic acid, aggrecans, lubricins, and phosphatidylcholine lipid, which are assembled onto the surface of articular cartilage in a gel state. Among them, brush-like biomacromolecules or assemblies have a vital effect on human joint lubrication. Inspired by this, the combination of brush-like molecular structures and gel-like assembly may be an efficient approach for the synthesis of biomimetic lubricating matters. Learning from the lubrication system of human joints, poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine) (PMPC) brushes grafted poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (poly(NIPAAm-co-AA)) microgels, abbreviated as MBs-g-MGs, were synthesized as one kind of biomimetic lubricating additives. It is worth noting that this bionic strategy considered both molecular structure and assembled form, which enabled this hairy microgel to achieve low friction in aqueous medium. Meanwhile, the effective lubrication was still achieved when using MBs-g-MGs at high temperature, indicating that this microgel maintains a good lubricating effect over a wide range of temperature. In addition, this kind of microgel possessed good biocompatibility, which laid the foundation for potential biomedical applications. Looking beyond, these biomimetic microgels may provide an effective lubricating effect for water-based sliding interfaces, especially in biomedical systems.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51905433 and 52175187), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2021M692625), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 3102019JC001).
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Yang FENG. He received his bachelor’s degree from the School of Material Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, China, in 2019 and received his master’s degree from the Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China, in 2022. His research interests include polymeric microgel lubricants and functional hydration lubrication.
Guoqiang LIU. He received his B.Eng. degree (2009) in materials chemistry and M.Eng. degree (2012) in materials science from Hubei University, China. Then, he completed his Ph.D. degree (2015) in materials science under the supervision of Weimin LIU and Feng ZHOU at Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. From 2015 to 2019, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Zijian ZHENG’s group at the Hongkong Polytechnic University, China. His current position is a full professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers in related journals, including Chemical Reviews, Advanced Materials, Nature Communications, and Small. His research interest includes functional lubrication, bionic tribology, polymer science, and 3D nanofabrication.
Feng ZHOU. He is now a full professor in Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of the State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication. He gained his Ph.D. degree in 2004 and spent three years (2005–2008) in the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK, as a research associate. He has published more than 300 journal papers, which have received more than 20,000 citations and have a highindex of 77. His research interests include bioinspired tribology, biomimic surfaces/interfaces of soft matter, drag-reduction, anti-biofouling, and boundary lubrication.
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Liu, G., Feng, Y., Gao, X. et al. Synovial fluid-inspired biomimetic lubricating microspheres: Zwitterionic polyelectrolyte brushes-grafted microgels. Friction 11, 938–948 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0634-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0634-5