Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels have shown potential applications in bionic articular cartilage due to their tissue‐like viscoelasticity, good biocompatibility and low friction. However, their lack of adequate mechanical properties is a key obstacle for PVA hydrogels to replace natural cartilage. In this study, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and glycerol were introduced into PVA, and a PVA/PEG–glycerol composite hydrogel was synthesized using a mixing physical crosslinking method. The mechanical properties, hydrophilicity and tribological behavior of the PVA/PEG–glycerol hydrogel were investigated by changing the concentration of glycerol in PEG. The results showed that the tensile strength of the hydrogel reached 26.6 MPa at 270% elongation at break with 20 wt% of glycerol plasticizer, which satisfied the demand of natural cartilage. In addition, the excellent hydrophilicity of glycerol provides good lubricating properties for the composite gel under dry friction. Meanwhile, self‐healing and cellular immunity assays demonstrated that the composite gel could have good self‐healing ability and excellent biocompatibility even in the absence of external stimuli. This study provides a new candidate material for the design of articular cartilage, which has the potential to facilitate advances in artificial joint cartilage repair. © 2022 Society of Industrial Chemistry.

With their excellent properties, hydrogels have attracted much attention for their potential application. However, it is still necessary to study the influencing factors of the hydrogel preparation process and its self‐healing mechanism. In this paper, the preparation method of boric acid (BA) cross‐linked poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel appeared to become studied in order to explore the effect of pressure in the cross‐linking process. Associated with, PVA and HA were combined, and then the mixture was cross‐linked with BA to produce BA‐PVA/HA hydrogel. The state of the hydrogel after cross‐linking was transformed after centrifugal pressure method, and its performance was analyzed experimentally. Compared with the BA‐PVA/HA hydrogel without centrifugal supercharging, the hydrogel after centrifugation has lower water content and lubricating effect, and the surface hardness is improved at the same time. In addition, the BA‐PVA/HA hydrogel has no external stimulation at room temperature, can also self‐heal quickly have based on hydrogen bonds, and has good recyclability. These results indicate that adding centrifugation steps in the preparation of BA‐PVA/HA hydrogels could properly switch the state of the hydrogels, which is expected to provide a certain research basis for the preparation and application of hydrogels.