These scum or leftovers coffee that build up in your coffee maker can have a very generous and environmentally friendly use, as research from RMIT University in Australia found that they can be used as substitutes for silica in the concrete production process, which in the right proportions provides a much stronger chemical bond. than just sand.
Every year, humanity produces about 4.4 million tons of concrete. About 8 billion tons of sand are consumed for this process, which has partly led to a severe shortage of basic construction products in recent years.
“Organic waste disposal is an environmental issue because it releases large amounts of greenhouse gases, including methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change,” study lead author Dr. Rajiv Roichand of the RMIT School of Engineering said in a recent statement. He notes that Australia alone produces 75 million kilograms of used coffee grounds each year, much of which ends up in landfills.
Coffee grounds cannot simply be mixed raw with standard concrete, as they will not bond to other materials due to their organic content, Dr. Roichand explained. To make the soil more compatible, the team experimented with pyrolyzing the materials at 350 and 500 degrees Celsius and then replacing the standard concrete mixes with sand at 5, 10, 15, and 20 percent (by volume).
The team found that 350 degrees is the ideal temperature to provide “a 29.3 percent improvement in the compressive strength of composite concrete mixed with coffee biochar,” according to the team’s research published in the September issue of the journal. Journal of Cleaner Production. “In addition to reducing emissions and producing stronger concrete, we are reducing the impact of the continued mining of natural resources such as sand,” said Dr. Roichand.
“The concrete industry has the potential to make a significant contribution to increasing the recycling of organic waste such as used coffee,” added study co-author Dr. Shannon Kilmartin-Lynch, Vice Chancellor Research Fellow for Indigenous Affairs at RMIT. “Our research is in its early stages, but these exciting discoveries offer an innovative way to significantly reduce the amount of organic waste ending up in landfills,” where decomposition would produce large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. .
Source: Digital Trends
I am Garth Carter and I work at Gadget Onus. I have specialized in writing for the Hot News section, focusing on topics that are trending and highly relevant to readers. My passion is to present news stories accurately, in an engaging manner that captures the attention of my audience.
