The majority of us enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning to kick-start our day. But an innovative, new use of the material could help to kick-start another aspect of our morning routine – the commute to work.
A group of engineers have trialled using coffee grounds as a building material for roads. And with the global coffee industry disposing of millions of tonnes of used grounds every year, there is plenty to go around.
In a recent study, Arul Arulrajah at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, and his colleagues collected coffee grounds that had been disposed of by a nearby café. They dried them in an oven set to 50 °C, then created a mixture consisting of seven parts coffee ground to three parts slag – a by-product of the steel manufacturing industry, plus an alkaline solution as a bind.
The group discovered that the finished, compressed material made the perfect foundations for a road’s surface.
Although still in the testing stages, this new approach to utilising coffee grounds could help reduce landfill, and is one step further towards creating a more ‘green’ construction and manufacturing industry.
And it’s not the first time that coffee has been reimagined for an alternative use. Over the past two years it’s been adapted for printer ink, furniture, and even clothing. So it seems that alongside your morning coffee providing an energy boost, it could eventually help to achieve a more energy-efficient future all round.
Study was originally published in Construction and Building Materials
