An improved process for making a structural foamed polymer, a multilayer
polymer film, sheet or tube, a pultrusion polymer profile, a compression
molded extruded fiber reinforced polymer pre-form, a strand foamed polymer
and a SCORIM formed polymer article. The improvement includes the step of
dispersing a multi-layered silicate material with the polymer so that the
polymer has dispersed therein single layers of silicate material, double
layers of silicate material, triple layers of silicate material, four
layers of silicate material, five layers of silicate material and more
than five layers of silicate material, the volume percent of the one, two,
three, four and five layers of silicate material greater than the volume
percent of the more then five layers of silicate material. In each of the
above embodiments an important benefit of the instant invention is the
orientation of the plane of the layers of silicate material. Preferably,
most of the layers of silicate material have substantially the same
orientation within thirty degrees of angle. Such orientation improves the
properties of the product and provides a practical way to make larger
products. The amount of multi-layered silicate material used is preferably
between one and twenty percent.
