4 th Brazilian Conference on Composite Materials. Rio de Janeiro, July 22 nd -25 th , 2018 1 ANALYSIS OF POLYACRILONITRILE/LIGNIN BLENDS BY SEM AND FT-IR AS AN ALTERNATIVE PRECURSOR FOR CARBON MATERIALS Katia S. D. Nunes (1) Nilton P. Alves (2) and Luiz C. Pardini (3) (1) Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica - ITA (2) IGTPAN (3) Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia Aeroespacial - DCTA - Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço-IAE, Divisão de Materiais (AMR) https://doi.org/10.21452/bccm4.2018.14.05 Abstract Lignin has been investigated as a promising feedstock for production of low-cost carbon materials. The kraft lignin was studied in this work since it is a waste from a production process at pulp and paper factory. Currently fibers from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) are precursors for obtaining carbon fiber, but at very high costs. In the first step of this work, blends with polyacrylonitrile and kraft lignin were investigated. The methodology employed was the extrusion process at temperature of 200 o C. Extrusion process is an economically viable and technologically robust process for the production of low-cost carbon materials from lignin precursors. The low cost and high availability of lignin have brought interest on its use as precursor of carbonaceous materials like activated carbons, carbon catalysts or composite materials. Copolymerization with conventional commodity plastics, particularly polyacrylonitrile (PAN), has gaining attention. This can be accomplished by an innovative technology for polyacrylonitrile-based precursors for carbon fibers, where lignin is mixing with the PAN in appropriate amounts to produce a polymer blend through a conventional extrusion process. The investigation revealed the production of good blends without disconnectedly phases inter polymers, based on the results of Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). FTIR analysis were also used to investigate the interaction inter polymer in the blend after the extrusion process. 1. INTRODUCTION New carbon materials produced directly from biomass have gained a lot of interest on last years [1]. Biomass is an important feedstock for the renewable production of fuels, chemicals, and energy [2]. Recently, it has been shown that lignin is potentially a suitable precursor material for the production of carbon fiber and composites [3, 4]. Lignin is an aromatic heteropolymer that is