Sliding on slide-ring gels

Recent investigations have pointed to physical entanglements that greatly outnumber chemical crosslinks as key sources of energy dissipation and low friction in hydrogel networks. Slide-ring gels are an emerging class of hydrogels described by their mobile crosslinks, which are formed by rings topologically constrained to slide along linear polymer chains within the network. These materials have enjoyed decades of study by polymer chemists but have been underexplored by the tribology community. In this work, we synthesized a pseudo-rotaxane crosslinker from poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEG-diacrylate) and α-cyclodextrin-acrylate followed by hydrogel networks by connecting the sliding crosslinks with polyacrylamide chains. The mechanical and tribological properties of slide-ring hydrogels were investigated using a custom-built microtribometer. Slide-ring hydrogels exhibit unique behavior compared to conventional covalently-crosslinked polyacrylamide hydrogels and offer a vast design..., Microindentations and sliding experiments were conducted with a custom-built linear reciprocating tribometer. Data was analyzed and processed with the following Matlab codes Compiling_Friction_Data_v5 and Tribometer_Indent_Analysis_v3_Wad
NMR spectroscopy was conducted with a Varian VNMRS 600 MHz spectrometer using D2O as a solvent. In all cases, the number of scans was 32, and the relaxation time was 1 s. The data files were processed in MestReNova. Using MestReNova, NMR CSV files were generated for this repository., , # Sliding on slide-ring gels

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ksn02v7dv](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ksn02v7dv)

### Description of the data and file structure

### Data from: Sliding on Slide-Ring Gels

Article DOI: 10.1007/s11249-024-01920-x

### **Authors:**

Andrew R. Rhode, University of California, Santa Barbara

Iván Montes de Oca, Universidade da Coruña

Michael L. Chabinyc, University of California, Santa Barbara

Christopher M. Bates, University of California, Santa Barbara

Angela A. Pitenis, University of California, Santa Barbara, [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

### Files and variables

#### File: 2024\_Rhode\_TribLett\_Dataset.zip

### File List

A) Table_1.csv

B) Fig_2a.csv

C) Fig_2b.csv

D) Fig_2c.csv

E) Fig_3a.csv

F) Fig_3b.csv

G) Fig_3c.csv

H) Fig_4a.csv

I) Fig_4b.csv

J) Fig_S1.csv

K) Fig_S2.csv

L) Table_S1.csv

L) Fig_S3.csv

A) Table_1.csv

Column 1: Concentration of acrylamide in the gel precursor solution in wt%

Column 2: Concentration of...