Dr Eng. Ewelina Kłosek-Wawrzyn, a researcher of the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow is working on the possibilities of using coffee grounds as an additive to clay in the production of porous ceramic materials with thermal insulation properties.
After proper preparation, coffee grounds are used as a fertilizer, biodegradable raw material for industrial production or biofuel. Dr Eng. Ewelina Kłosek-Wawrzyn from the Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow is working on the use of coffee grounds as an ecological raw material for production, materials that can be used to construct or insulate buildings.
According to the data of the International Coffee Organization, about 10 million tons of coffee beans are produced annually worldwide. If the entire annual harvest is ground and used for a drink, it will leave a lot of coffee grounds. This waste is not neutral for the environment, because when deposited in landfills, it emits methane, which is one of the gases involved in the greenhouse process.
The idea of using coffee waste as an additive to clay in the production of porous ceramics is not new. The challenge for engineers is to optimize the process to obtain a material with the desired thermal insulation parameters, meeting the standards in terms of mechanical resistance. Materials used in construction must endure very high stresses, while adding too much burnout materials to the clay weakens their resistance.
Dr Eng. Kłosek-Wawrzyn conducts her research together with his colleagues from the Department of Building Materials Technology in laboratory conditions, where she prepares samples of ceramic materials, choosing different proportions of the vaporizer in the form of coffee grounds. Then the prepared samples are subjected to detailed analysis.
According to the researcher from Krakow, the currently manufactured building materials have too high strength parameters, which translates into lower thermal insulation properties.
Dr Kłosek- Wawrzyn explains that in her study she wants to find the optimum between thermal insulation properties and durability. “I do not focus on tall structures, only one- and two-storey ones, where the strength of the material does not have to be that high, so it can have a higher porosity, and thus better thermal insulation properties”, explains Dr Kłosek-Wawrzyn.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński