Composite materials made from renewable resources can minimize the environmental pollution. In this work, biocomposite films were produced using seaweed as matrix and empty fruit bunch (EFB) pulp fibers as reinforcement. Based on the results, the EFB pulp-seaweed composite films exhibited better mechanical properties than the seaweed film. It was also observed that 50% EFB pulp loading gave the highest tensile strength (81.4 MPa) and elongation at break (5.4%). This phenomenon was supported by SEM analysis, in which more fiber breakage than fiber pull-out was observed on the tensile fracture surface of composite film. Additionally, no agglomeration of the pulp fibers was observed. Instead, the pulp fibers were homogenously distributed throughout the film. In contrast, the contact angle of the seaweed-based films started to decrease once the pulp fibers were added. The decrease in the contact angle was attributed to the hydrophilic nature of the pulp fibers. Nevertheless, the contact angle values of all composite films were still comparatively high and thus, this would not affect their application as a packaging film.

A series of uniaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate fibers irradiated in a nuclear reactor have been investigated. On the basis of tensile studies the ultimate tensile strength is found to decrease as the dose of reactor irradiation increases. However, the ultimate tensile strength is found to increase when the degree of molecular orientation increases. But after the samples have received a relatively high dose of irradiation the tensile strength approaches practically zero. The x-ray diffraction scans of the nonirradiated samples with low degrees of orientation indicate very little crystallinity, whereas the very definite diffraction peaks associated with the irradiated and oriented samples indicate a definite trend toward crystallinity.