Experimentally Determining the Young's Modulus for Compression of Swellable Organically Modified Silica

To build on previous work regarding the Young's modulus of expansion of Swellable Organically Modified Silica (SOMS), we generated stress-strain curves for the compression of swollen SOMS within a fixed cross-sectional area. This data was used to calculate the Young's modulus of compression of swollen Cyclasorb, which was found to be (0.964±0.032) MPa, which deviates by 20.5% from previous research's calculation of the Young's modulus of expansion for swollen Cyclasorb, which is 0.8 MPa. Our methods are currently being employed in variable-temperature experiments for insight on the thermodynamics of swelling. These results will improve the application of SOMS in environmental remediation.