Production of carbon nanofibers from PAN and lignin by solution blow spinning

Carbon nanofibers (CNF) are highly electric conductor materials that can be produced from petroleum-based polymers by different methods, such as electrospinning and solution blowing (SBS). In this work, we studied the production of CNF by SBS from lignin. The nanofibers were characterized by XRD, FTIR, Raman and 13 C solid state NMR spectroscopies, thermogravimetry (TG / DTG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and their structural properties were assessed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). CNF were obtained with a PAN/lignin ratio up to 20:80 from solutions with mass concentration of 18%. For the 10:90 PAN/lignin ratio, nanofibers were only obtained from solutions with constant viscosity of 0.2 Pa.s. The nanofibers had an average diameter of 228.5 nm and R (ID/IG) of 1.26. Thus, carbon nanofibers with up to 90% lignin were successfully produced in this work using the new solution blow spinning technique.