2023-08-28 06:00:08
Coffee grounds are organic waste, produced in very large quantities across the planet and which generally end up in landfills. However, researchers have just discovered that by replacing part of the sand with coffee grounds in concrete (concrete is a composite construction material made from…), the latter might be 30% more resistant!
Image d’illustration Pixabay
Each year, 10 billion kilograms (The kilogram (symbol kg) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI).) of coffee grounds end up in our garbage bags. Due to its fine grain size, researchers from the RMIT university (A university is an institution of higher education whose objective is the…) RMIT in Australia (Australia (officially the Commonwealth of Australia) is a country de…) were interested in this waste (A waste (rubbish, residue, etc.) is an object at the end of its life or a substance resulting from a process, etc. which might possibly prove useful for the invention of a new type of concrete. The results of their study were recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
These researchers scoured cafes around Melbourne to collect their grounds. They then tested various processes aimed at making it usable, in particular by heating this organic matter (Organic matter (OM) is the carbonaceous matter generally produced by…) at different temperature levels (Temperature is a physical quantity measured using a thermometer and…) to improve its binding capacity with cement (Cement (from the Latin caementum, meaning rubble, building stone) is a material…). The pomace was then incorporated into cement as a replacement for sand. This is how concrete was produced, and poured into moulds. After having eliminated the air pockets by a system of vibrations, the concrete hardened in a water tank.
The researchers were then able to test its resistance to compression. After several attempts of proportions and heating of the marc, they managed to find the best process to arrive at a quality concrete: among the set (In theory of sets, a set intuitively designates a collection…) of the tests carried out , they found that if they replaced 15% of the sand with marc pyrolyzed at precisely 350°C, the concrete thus produced was 29.3% more efficient than that usually used!
Although this research is still in its infancy, the results are already promising. Given the volume (The volume, in physical or mathematical sciences, is a quantity that measures the extension…) of coffee grounds discarded each year, this technique might also contribute to recycling (Recycling is a process of treatment of industrial waste and household waste which…) useful of this waste. From an ecological point of view, this new process is also welcome, knowing that each year 40 to 50 billion tons of sand and gravel are extracted for construction. Concrete implementations are already envisaged, since researchers are currently working on local infrastructure projects such as the construction of footbridges and sidewalks.
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