Abstract
MXene possesses great potential in enriching the functionalities of hydrogels due to its unique metallic conductivity, high aspect ratio, near-infrared light (NIR light) responsiveness, and wide tunability, however, the poor compatibility of MXene with hydrogels limits further applications. In this work, we report a uniformly dispersed MXene-functionalized poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAM)/poly-2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid (PAMPS) double network hydrogel (M—DN hydrogel) that can achieve switchable friction regulation by using the NIR light. The dispersity of MXene in hydrogels was significantly improved by incorporating the chitosan (CS) polymer. This M—DN hydrogel showed much low coefficient of friction (COF) at 25 °C due to the presence of hydration layer on hydrogel surface. After illuminating with the NIR light, M—DN hydrogel with good photothermal effect rapidly raised the temperature to above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST), which led to an obvious increase of surface COF owing to the destruction of the hydration layer. In addition, M—DN friction control hydrogel showed good recyclability and controllability by tuning “on-off” of the NIR light. This work highlights the construction of functional MXene hydrogels for intelligent lubrication, which provides insight for interface sensing, controlled transmission, and flexible robotic arms.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the financial support from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 52175187), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M692625), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The authors Feng ZHOU and Weimin LIU are the Editorial Board of Members of this journal.
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Pengxi WU. He received his bachelor degree in materials science and engineering in 2020 from Tiangong University and received his master degree in the Center of Advanced Lubrication and Sealing Materials in 2023 from Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research interests include MXene based composite hydrogels and their intelligent friction.
Guoqiang LIU. He is currently a full professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University. He received his BEng. (2009) in materials chemistry and MEng. (2012) in materials science from Hubei University (China). Then, he completed his Ph.D. (2015) in materials science under the supervision of prof. Weimin Liu and prof. Feng Zhou at Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2015 to 2019, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the prof. Zijian Zheng’s group at Hongkong Polytechnic University. As the first author or corresponding author, he has published more than 30 peer-reviewed high-quality papers, such as Chemical Reviews, Advanced Materials, Nature Communications, and Small. His research interest includes functional lubrication, bionic tribology, nanoscale lubricating additives, polymer science, and 3D nanofabrication.
Feng ZHOU. He is a full professor in Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, and head of Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics and 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 as a research associate. He has published more than 500 journal papers, which have received more than 28,000 citations and have a high-index of 90. His research interests include bioinspired tribology, biomimic surfaces/interfaces of soft matter, drag-reduction, anti-biofouling, and boundary lubrication.
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Wu, P., Zeng, C., Guo, J. et al. Achieving near-infrared-light-mediated switchable friction regulation on MXene-based double network hydrogels. Friction 12, 39–51 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0726-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0726-2