Layered-silicate polymer WAXD

WAXD difiractograms of intercalated or otherwise stacked tactoid structures may show second-order and even third-order reflections, which are assodated to very ordered stacking of the intercalated layers [24,26,28,45-48]. On the other hand, the absence of high order (001) peaks in the WAXD patterns of nanocomposites, especially with low amounts of MMT fillers, can be due to different reasons, such as a decrease in the regularity of the stacking layers or a diminution of the size and number of tactoids with highly parallel stacking, and a consequent increase in the proportion of exfoliated silicate layers dispersed in the polymer matrix [27,49]. 

---