The composites based on the EVA/EVM thermoplastic vulcanizates and organoclay have been fabricated by two different strategies:(1) One-step fabrication by directly dynamically vulcanizing the EVA/EVM blends with organoclay using a peroxide; (2) Two-step fabrication by first preparing the TPV by dynamic vulcanization followed by melt mixing with organoclay. The structure and properties of the composites have been investigated. Organoclay was selectively located in the crosslinked EVM phase for all the samples by the two strategies. However

it was found that the composites fabricated by the two-step strategy have much smaller phase size and the organocaly shows much higher exfoliation efficiency than those fabricated by one-step strategy. It was further found that the composites fabricated by the two-step strategy exhibit much better physical properties than those by one-step strategy. The tensile strength and elongation at break are 15. 5 MPa and 856% for the two-step fabricated sample with 5% organoclay

respectively

as compared with 9. 1 MPa and 423% for the one-step fabricated sample. Moreover

the limit oxygen index (LOI) of the two-step fabricated samples is also higher than that of the one-step fabricated sample.