Your morning coffee might end up under your feet. Researchers at RMIT University in Australia found that charred coffee grounds can make concrete up to 30% stronger.
The world produces about 10 billion kilograms of coffee waste every year, and most of it ends up in landfills, where it releases methane and carbon dioxide. At the same time, the construction boom keeps driving demand for sand, which is mined from riverbeds and banks at a real environmental cost.
The team’s fix tackles both problems. Raw coffee grounds can’t go straight into concrete because they leak chemicals that weaken it, so the researchers heat them above 350 °C without oxygen. That turns the grounds into biochar, a porous, carbon-rich material that bonds into the cement and replaces some of the sand.
It’s already leaving the lab. A footpath in Victoria was built with the material in 2024, and a major road upgrade project later used it too, keeping roughly 140,000 coffees’ worth of grounds out of landfill and saving over 3 tons of sand.
The researchers are honest that it’s early days. Long-term durability still needs testing against freeze/thaw cycles, water absorption and wear, and they’re working on biochars from wood, food and agricultural waste as well.
Would you be happy to walk on a sidewalk made from your morning latte? ☕
#Sustainability #CircularEconomy #Concrete #Innovation #Science
The world produces about 10 billion kilograms of coffee waste every year, and most of it ends up in landfills, where it releases methane and carbon dioxide. At the same time, the construction boom keeps driving demand for sand, which is mined from riverbeds and banks at a real environmental cost.
The team’s fix tackles both problems. Raw coffee grounds can’t go straight into concrete because they leak chemicals that weaken it, so the researchers heat them above 350 °C without oxygen. That turns the grounds into biochar, a porous, carbon-rich material that bonds into the cement and replaces some of the sand.
It’s already leaving the lab. A footpath in Victoria was built with the material in 2024, and a major road upgrade project later used it too, keeping roughly 140,000 coffees’ worth of grounds out of landfill and saving over 3 tons of sand.
The researchers are honest that it’s early days. Long-term durability still needs testing against freeze/thaw cycles, water absorption and wear, and they’re working on biochars from wood, food and agricultural waste as well.
Would you be happy to walk on a sidewalk made from your morning latte? ☕
#Sustainability #CircularEconomy #Concrete #Innovation #Science
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Birdsview, a Bergen-based startup specialising in #concrete #inspection technology that helps preserve #infrastructure, has raised €3.7 million to strengthen its #commercial, industrial, and international scaling. 🇳🇴 🔍 🏢
https://t.co/UAUQjC6AI9
https://t.co/UAUQjC6AI9
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