The uses for spent coffee grounds are proving to be limitless. From stronger concrete to a Styrofoam alternative to next-gen batteries and 3D printer filament and even biofuel, spent coffee grounds are an eco-friendly alternative to more traditional materials across industries. And researchers have found another use: cleaning contaminated water.
I personally like to use my coffee grounds to contaminate water. I call it a pour-over. But it appears that coffee is equally as good at pulling bad stuff out of water as it is at putting good stuff in it. As reported by Tech Xplore, researchers from the UK’s Loughborough University sought to determine if spent coffee grounds could be an effective tool in removing lead and other heavy metal ions from water.
For their study, published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy, researchers began by turning spent coffee grounds into biochar, a process by which the grounds are subjected to high temperatures, resulting in a highly-porous, carbon-rich material. Biochar has an incredibly diversity of uses and is one of the primary ways folks find new life for used coffee.
They found that coffee-based biochar was effective at removing up to 98% of lead in water and was able to trap in 4.9mg lead per gram of biochar. They also found that unprocessed spent coffee grounds were able to remove heavy metals like copper and zinc from water at low concentrations, whereas a mix of coffee and rice husk performed better with higher metal concentrations.
The new research builds on previous findings, where spent coffee grounds were used to remove herbicides and other harmful chemicals from water.
The potential benefits of using coffee in this way are many. For one, it is fairly inexpensive technology. And it is an eco-friendly double whammy. Turning coffee into biochar removes some of the millions of tons that head to landfills each year while also transforming it into something beneficial to the planet and its inhabitants.
Chalk up another win for the good guys. And now we have a good use for Double French Roast, which I assume is the same as biochar. (Just kidding, love you, dark roast.)
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
