Friction properties of novel PVP/PVA blend hydrogels
as artificial cartilage
Ruyin Ma, Dangsheng Xiong, Feng Miao, Jinfeng Zhang, Yan Peng
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology,
Nanjing 210094, China
Received 4 December 2008; accepted 4 April 2009
Published online 9 September 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.32552
Abstract: In this work, novel polyvinylpyrrolidone
(PVP)/polyvinylalcohol (PVA) blend hydrogels were pre-
pared by repeated freezing-thawing cycles. The factors
that influenced friction properties of blend hydrogels, such
as PVP content, contact load, sliding speed, and lubrication
condition, were mainly studied by sliding with stainless
steel ball. The results showed that friction coefficients of
the PVP/PVA blend hydrogels were definitely dependent
on such influence factors. The friction system consisting of
INTRODUCTION
Artificial joints have been playing an important
role in relieving pain and restoring functions for the
patients suffering from osteoarthritis, congenital
deformities, or traumas.1,2 Durability of artificial
joints remains a major problem for clinical use, espe-
cially for younger and more active patients.
Wear debris of the prosthesis components can
induce a series of adverse tissue reactions, causing
osteolysis and concomitant loosening, and eventually
leading failure of the artificial joints.3–5 Then, it
needs joint revision, which requires a new surgical
intervention and has a poorer outcome than the orig-
inal one.1 Many measures have been taken to
improve friction properties of artificial joints, such as
modifying the existed prosthesis material, searching
for new bearing material, and altering bearing
couples (metal-on-metal, ceramic-on-metal, or poly-
mer-on-metal).5–10 But, artificial joints always
work under a mixed lubrication regime, where some
Correspondence to: D. Xiong; e-mail: xiongds@163.com
Contract grant sponsor: National Natural Science Foun-
dation; contract grant number: 50575106
Contract grant sponsor: Jiangsu Province of China (High
Technology Project); contract grant number: BG2007046
Ó 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
blend hydrogel and stainless steel ball nearly exhibited a
mixed lubrication regime especially under bovine serum
lubrication, and it can be proposed as a promising method
to reduce wear of the prosthesis. Ó 2009 Wiley Periodicals,
Inc. J Biomed Mater Res 93A: 1016–1019, 2010
Key words: polyvinylalcohol (PVA); polyvinylpyrrolidone
(PVP); friction property; mixed lubrication
load is supported by fluid film and some by
solid-to-solid contact, which causes the wear debris
and the failure of the prosthesis.11 However, healthy
natural joints operate in liquid film lubrication and
the joint surfaces are separated by a fluid film, called
synovial fluid, which reduces contact of the joint
surface with reduction of the friction and wear.1,2,11
As a result, it is supposable to develop such a lubri-
cation mechanism between artificial joints to reduce
the friction and wear, so as to prolong their service
life. Suciu et al.1,2,12 developed a bearing system
consisting of a stainless steel femoral component
and polyvinylalcohol (PVA) hydrogel bionic
articular cartilage. It is reported that such system
carried out superior frictional performances and
biocompatibility.1,13
PVA hydrogels have many advantages that make
them prime candidates for biomedical applications,
such as high water content, tissue-like elasticity, and
biocompatibility.13–15 Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)
hydrogel is another hydrogel that has been used for
a number of biomedical applications because of its
remarkable properties, such as high hydrophilicity,
complexing ability, and biocompatibility.16–18 During
the last decades, the miscible blend of PVA and PVP
has been studied intensively for nucleus pulposus
replacement and wound dressing.19 In this work,
PVP/PVA blend hydrogels were prepared by repeat-
ing freezing and thawing method. Some factors that
FRICTION PROPERTIES OF NOVEL PVP/PVA BLEND HYDROGELS
influenced the friction properties of PVP/PVA blend
hydrogels were illustrated, such as PVP content,
load, and lubrication condition.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Preparation of PVP/PVA hydrogels
PVA, saponified greater than 99% with a polymerization
degree of 1750 6 50 was supplied by Sinopharm Chemical
Reagent Co., China. PVP K-30 and physiological saline
were purchased from Shanghai Jiuyi Chemical Reagent
Co., China. Both polymers were used without further puri-
fication. Physiological saline was used as the solvent.
Both polymers were dissolved in physiological saline by
keeping the temperature at 958C for 24 h to make a solu-
tion containing 15 wt % PVA and 1, 4, 8, and 15 wt %
PVP, respectively. After removing air bubbles at a higher
temperature, the mixture solutions were cast into moulds
and frozen at 2208C for 16 h to induce crystallization, and
then, the thawing process was followed by putting the
moulds at room temperature for 8 h. This freezing and
thawing cycle was repeated additional two, four, and six
times, respectively. The resulting samples were put in
deionized water for further use.
Friction properties
Friction properties were investigated by sliding against
stainless steel balls with a diameter of 20 mm under differ-
ent lubrication conditions on a self-made ball-on-disc tri-
bometer.5 Surface roughness of the stainless steel ball is
0.1 6 0.05 lm. During wear test, the contact loads were set
to 2.5, 7.5, 12.5, and 17.5 N, and sliding speeds were set at
different values to stimulate different walking modes.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Effect of PVP content
Figure 1 represents the effect of PVP content on
friction coefficient of PVP/PVA blend hydrogels. It
is observed that friction coefficient reduced as the
PVP content increased. It was reported that surface
water was consisting of equilibrium water and free
water.20 Equilibrium water played a major role dur-
ing the lubrication process than free water because it
had larger surface interaction with the polymer sur-
face. Amide groups increased as the PVP content
increased, resulting in more equilibrium water and
improving the lubrication condition, followed by
smaller friction coefficient.
1017
Figure 1. Effect of PVP content on friction coefficient
(sliding speed 5 0.12 m/s; load 5 7.5 N, deionized water
lubrication).
Effect of contact load
Hydrogels were found to exhibit a characteristic
viscoelastic behavior.21 Fluid within the pores of the
polymer structure was squeezed out under applied
load; the pumping of the fluid enhanced hydrody-
namic lubrication effect and substantially reduced
the friction.2,22,23 On the other hand, as the applied
load increased, the contact area between stainless
steel balls and blend hydrogels increased, as well as
the contact depth, this resulted in a higher value of
sliding resistance and increased friction coefficient,
as shown in Figure 2. In a word, friction coefficient
was dependent on lubrication condition between the
bearing surfaces along with the contact area and
contact depth. However, rise of the contact area and
contact depth with the increased load played the
major role in influencing the friction behavior; this
resulted in a higher coefficient value with a higher
load, as presented in Figure 3.
Effect of sliding speed
Under different kinds of lubrication, a similar
tendency of the friction coefficient versus the sliding
speed is observed. For instance, under the lubrica-
tion of deionized water, when the sliding speed
increased from 0.06 to 0.18 m/s, the friction coeffi-
cient dropped to 14%. PVP/PVA blend hydrogel is a
kind of viscoelastic material with small elastic modu-
lus. Under the applied load, material surface tended
to deform; meanwhile, it performed strain lagging
for its viscoelasticity.24 With a low sliding speed,
surface strain rate of the blend hydrogel differed lit-
tle from the sliding speed, this lead to larger contact
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A
1018
Figure 2. Effect of load on friction coefficient (PVP 5 15
wt %; sliding speed 5 0.12 m/s, bovine serum lubrication).
area and friction resistance, so as to produce a larger
friction coefficient. However, when sliding against
stainless steel ball on a higher speed, material sur-
face deformation velocity lagged behind the sliding
speed, which made it difficult to produce deforma-
tion on the blend hydrogel surface. Therefore, con-
tact area and contact depth of the blend hydrogel
were relatively small, so that a smaller friction
resistance was obtained. Anyway, as illustrated in
Figure 4, friction coefficient of the PVP/PVA hydro-
gels dropped with the rise of sliding speed.
Effect of lubrication condition
The change of friction coefficient as a function of
time under different lubrication conditions is shown
in Figure 5. It is observed that during the initial
stage of the friction (t < 25 min), the blend hydrogel
Figure 3. Contact area and contact depth under different
applied loads (PVP 5 15 wt %; sliding speed 5 0.12 m/s,
bovine serum lubrication).
Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A
MA ET AL.
Figure 4. Effect of sliding speed on friction coefficient
(PVP 5 1%, load 5 7.5 N, bovine serum lubrication).
presented an approximate same friction coefficient
under the four lubrication conditions. Friction coeffi-
cient increased sharply on dry friction with the pas-
sage of time. However, it almost remained a certain
value under the other three friction conditions. PVP/
PVA blend hydrogel represented a three-dimen-
sional network of polymer chains, which retained
large amount of water in it.1,16,19 When sliding
against the stainless steel ball on dry friction, plenty
of water molecules were squeezed out from the
polymer network structure to the friction surface to
form a water lubricating film; this played a lubricat-
ing role for the friction pairs.1,2 But as the time pro-
longed, free water on the contact surface consumed
a lot for evaporation, the water deep in polymer
structure could not transfer to the friction surface
promptly, which caused the destroy of the water
lubricating film. That was the indicative reason for
Figure 5. Effect of lubrication condition on friction coeffi-
cient (PVP 5 1 wt %; load 5 7.5 N; sliding speed 5
0.12 m/s).
FRICTION PROPERTIES OF NOVEL PVP/PVA BLEND HYDROGELS
the sharp rise of the friction coefficient on dry friction
after the initial friction stage, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5 shows that the lubricating fluid demon-
strated a significant role in reduction and stabiliza-
tion of the friction coefficient. Lubricating fluid was
mediated by formation of a fluid film with normal
bearing capacity to reduce the contact stress.1 With
the rise of lubricant viscosity, the fluid film thickness
increased, which resulted in a lower friction coeffi-
cient. This explained the reason that it obtained the
smallest friction coefficient on bovine serum lubrica-
tion, as well as the largest one on deionized water
lubrication. On the other hand, bovine serum con-
tained several kinds of organic macromolecules,
such as gamma globulin and La-DPPC; during fric-
tion, these macromolecules could not permeate into
the three-dimensional network like the water mole-
cules, which led to a thicker fluid between the bear-
ing surfaces.23 It also contributed to produce a small-
est friction coefficient on bovine serum lubrication.
CONCLUSIONS
PVA hydrogel is considered as the most promising
material for biomedical applications for its tissue-like
mechanical behavior and excellent biocompatibility,
as well as it can improve lubrication regime by
replacing the rigid prosthesis component serving as
artificial cartilage. Adding PVP polymers to PVA
hydrogels can significantly reduce friction coefficient
of PVA hydrogels. Furthermore, the friction
behavior of PVP/PVA blend hydrogels is mainly
determined by lubrication friction conditions and
changed a lot in different walking conditions. The
friction system consisting of blend hydrogel and
stainless steel ball nearly exhibited a mixed lubrica-
tion regime, especially under bovine serum lubrica-
tion, which can be proposed as a promising method
to reduce wear of the prosthesis, and make an excel-
lent use in develop novel biomaterials for early
invention, which can be used as another type of
therapeutic measure for young and active patients
suffered from osteoarthritis.
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