The disclosure provides a composition or set of compositions and methods for producing cellular foamable, foamed, or blown perfluoropolymers or fluoropolymers and other thermoplastics to create products including a lower cost communications cable, conductor separator, conductor support-separator, jacketing, tape, wire insulation and in some cases a conduit tube as individual components or combined configurations that exhibit improved electrical, flammability and optical properties. The composition of the invention can be is chemically foamable yielding homogeneous foamed insulating structures which excel simultaneously in providing excellent insulating properties on
metal wires or optical fibers, outstanding
processing parameters for high speed cable manufacture and high performance ratings on flammability,
smoke generation and fuel load. Specifically, the foamable perfluoropolymer cellular insulation composition comprises blending or individually utilizing; a selected perfluoropolymer in combination with
magnesium carbonate,
calcium carbonate and Aclyn®
wax; a second composition comprising the first composition and an additional selected one or more perfluoropolymers; a third composition comprising;
talc and the selected one or more perfluoropolymers; a fourth composition comprising; the second composition, the third composition and the selected one or more perfluoropolymers. A single compounded pellet or product resulting in cellular foams obtained from melt
processing the
pellets has also been realized by providing the melt combination of only
talc and a perfluoropolymer. The present invention includes a foamable perfluoropolymer composition comprising at least one melt-processible per(halo)
fluoropolymer; and a
blowing agent comprising an effective amount of
magnesium carbonate; andan active nucleating agent chosen among:at least one
metal carbonate different from
magnesium carbonate having
decomposition temperature exceeding 350° C., generally chosen among CaCO3, BaCO3, ZnCO3 and PbCO3; and
talc and mixtures thereof.