Abstract
The hydration lubrication paradigm, whereby hydration layers are both strongly held by the charges they surround, and so can support large pressures without being squeezed out, and at the same time remain very rapidly relaxing and so have a fluid response to shear, provides a framework for understanding, controlling, and designing very efficient boundary lubrication systems in aqueous and biological media. This review discusses the properties of confined water, which—unlike organic solvents—retains its fluidity down to molecularly thin films. It then describes lubrication by hydrated ions trapped between charged surfaces, and by other hydrated boundary species including charged and zwitterionic polymer brushes, surfactant monolayers, liposomes, and biological macromolecules implicated in synovial joint lubrication. Finally, challenges and prospects for future development of this new boundary lubrication approach are considered.
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Jacob Klein, born 1949, is the Herman Mark Professor of Polymer Physics at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. Klein gained his BA in Physics at the University of Cambridge, where in 1977 he also received his M.A. and PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory. He did his postdoc at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and from 1980-1984 was a Senior Scientist at the Weizmann Institute and a University Demonstrator at the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1984 he was appointed Professor at the Weizmann Institute (full Professor from 1987), and subsequently headed its Polymer Research department and was Chairman of its Scientific Council. From 2000-2007 Klein was the Dr. Lee’s Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and Head of its Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory (2000-2005). His interests in soft matter have ranged from the dynamics and interfacial properties of polymers to the behaviour of confined fluids and biological lubrication, and, more recently, tissue engineering. Klein has published over 200 papers, including over 20 in Science and Nature. His honours include the Charles Vernon Boys Prize of the Institute of Physics, UK (1984), the High Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society (1995), the 2010 Prize of the Israel Chemical Society and the 2011 Soft Matter and Biophysical Chemistry Award of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry and the 2012 Tribology Gold Medal. In 2009, he received an ERC Advanced Grant.
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Klein, J. Hydration lubrication. Friction 1, 1–23 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-013-0001-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-013-0001-7