Each year across the globe over 16 billion pounds of coffee is produced by farmers and while we do use all of it to quench our thirst for that kick of caffeine, there is still plenty of waste left behind in the form of coffee grounds. Once we extract all the taste that we need from the seeds, the extract is most often just discarded and ends up in a landfill or in some rare cases as compost for the garden. A team of researchers under Susanta Mohapatra, a chemical engineer at the University of Nevada, Reno, have found a way to turn this waste into biofuel that is far more stable than the one we obtain today from food crops.
It is no new fact that biofuel can be extracted from coffee seeds, but to wriggle out those last drops of energy from coffee grounds is something that has not come across the minds of many scientists till today. This new method developed by Mohapatra, first dries the coffee grounds in an oven and then the powder is mixed with a combination of solvents that causes the oil to separate from the solution. While only 15 percent of the extract is converted into useful biofuel that is as good as any, the waste can be once again reused as compost, ethanol feedstock, and fuel pellets.
For now though this innovative method is just in the preliminary stages of research and development, but considering the amount of coffee one uses, it won’t be surprising to see the method go commercial at some point in future. To make it economically viable at any point of time, there is a need to integrate extensive recycling system with coffee factories, to ensure that the best possible results are obtained. All that still seems a long distance away, but the first steps are encouraging indeed.
Via: Discovery