|
Hi,
I am a student in Hong Kong. Now, I have a school project about eco-protection. I am thinking to recycle leftovers to bioplastics, and I want to use coffee residue as the raw material.
However, my first question is: is it possible make use of coffee residue to produce bioplastic?
Anyone tried that before?
As I know, cellulose can be transformed to bioplastic, but i don't know how to extract cellulose from coffee residue. I google that someone said to boil wood or paper can get cellulose, however i tried that and seems it is not work for coffee residue. Would you share some information to me?
Thanks a lot.
Regards,
Franky
RESPONSE FROM GREEN-PLASTICS.NET:
Hello, Franky! Thank you for your question.
The term "coffee residue" can refer to the husks of coffee plants and also to used coffee grounds.
The husks are very rich in cellulose, but (unfortunately) you can't extract it simply by boiling it in water, because it will not dissolve. Dissolving the cellulose has to be done by trained chemists using special conditions, and the solvents are quite hazardous. So this is not something you can readily do as a home project.
The coffee grounds are not a good source of cellulose. It is possible to use them in the creation of plastic, but the process is very complex and, once again, can only really be done by trained chemists under certain conditions. What they would have to do is grind the residue, extract some of the organic components with solvents, pyrolyze the remainder to carbon, and blend the pyrolyzed carbon with a polymer to produce a plastic. If the polymer is a thermosetting polymer like polyurethane, the carbon from the coffee residue acts as a filler and the material can be compression molded.
So if the intent behind your question is simply, "Is it possible to use coffee residue in the creation of plastic?" then the simple answer is "yes!" Unfortunately, if the intent behind your question is, "Is coffee-residue plastic something that I can experiment with at home?" the answer is "probably not."
|
Discussion 
Comments
Actually, This is only my school project, and I am not necessary to produce real product (ofcoz, it is better to have). I just wanna know it's possible or not. You have answered my question. Thanks a lot.
If the plastic is produced as your described, is it the still biodegradable?
Also, are the by-products harmful to environment?
Since my project is about eco-protection, if it is not biodegradable, it is not value to do so.
Thanks a lot.
Cellophane is the most common product made from cellulose, and has been around for a long time. Uncoated cellophane film disintegrates in 10-14 days and totally biodegrades in 1-2 months. Cellophane is generally made from wood. There have been plenty of attempts to regenerate cellulose from other sources, but they have not been cost competitive. Have they tried coffee husks? I don't know. Most likely the processing would be cost-prohibitive.
The other suggestion, converting the grounds into pyrolyzed carbon to use as a filler, would only produce a biodegradable plastic if the polymer that it is added to is biodegradable, and even then it would depend on what other material was in the plastic.
In the end, the only SURE benefit of using coffee residue in a plastic would be that you are not using oil (like in standard plastics) or food (like with corn plastics). Whether the end result is biodegradable depends too much on the other factors of how the plastic is made.
Thanks for your fruitful explanation.
It is a great help for my project.
Franky
RSS feed for comments to this post