Effect of reduced graphene oxide amount on the tribological properties of UHMWPE biocomposites under water-lubricated conditions

Abstract

Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) has been broadly utilized in hip and knee artificial implant due to its low friction coefficient, high wear resistance and good biocompatibility. However, some disadvantage properties such as low young’s modulus and low load bearing, anti-fatigue capacity limit application areas and wear debris of UHMWPE components cause implant failure. For this reason, reduced graphene oxide (RGO) filler was produced by green synthesis with vitamin C and the influences of RGO filler content on the tribological performance under distilled water lubrication condition were investigated and had been correlated with microstructure. RGO filled UHMWPE biocomposites were fabricated by firstly liquid phase ultrasonic mixing and then hot press molding. The characterization and experiment results revealed that the wear behavior of UHMWPE/RGO biocomposites were not only affected by the lubricant and binder properties of RGO, but also restricted by the content of RGO filler. The RGO filled UHMWPE biocomposites exhibited a lower wear rate and friction coefficient in comparison to the unfilled UHMWPE. The biocomposite with 0.7 wt% of RGO showed good interfacial bonding strength and excellent wear resistance. Furthermore, fatigue wear tracks reduced significantly on the same biocomposite surface. High crystallite size and microhardness value of UHMWPE/RGO-0.7 biocomposite was caused destroy the tribofilm formed on the Al2O3 counterface.