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Coffee could power your car as well as your brain according to researchers writing in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Scientists at the University of Nevada-Reno extracted oils from leftover coffee grounds at a major coffee chain and converted it into biodiesel.
The coffee grounds contained 11-20 percent oil— a comparable number to palm oil (20 percent), rapeseed oil (37-50 percent), and soybean oil (20 percent).
According to the US Department of Agriculture, the world produces over 7.2 million tons of coffee per year. That could yield as much as 340 million gallons of biodiesel.
The extraction process is easy, economical, and produces waste that can be used as garden compost or fuel pellets, so there's nothing stopping coffee grounds from becoming the next big biofuel.
Interesting Feedstock
This is certainly a very interesting feedstock, as this does not compete with food for land. Neither does it require additional resources because it is wast anyway. However the collection and trucking to central processing plants my spoil the overall carbon footprint a bit. There is a big advantage, if you grow coffee, and make biodiesel at the same spot as in brazil.
Tom
leftover coffee should no more be treated as waste everywhere
I've asked some chain store in Taiwan but they don't collect the leftover coffee grounds for energy extraction. No matter the process is or not an innovation, the technology should be applied everywhere in the world.
sunNYC-ecolore
Too late: coffee already is powering some cars
Uhhhh, you're a little slow on this. Google "Brazil", "coffee", and "biodisel". They've already been doing this since 2006.
I suppose because it doesn't happen in the U.S., people presume it simply doesn't exist.
not sure this is a good idea
If corn gave us any indication of how biofuels affects the economy, then using coffee grinds is a bad idea. Somehow I see the price of my morning cup of coffee going up and that does not sit well with me. LOL