Issue 30, 2021

Spent coffee waste as a renewable source for the production of sustainable poly(butylene succinate) biocomposites from a circular economy perspective

Abstract

Turning waste products into useable resources is a necessity for the sustainable future of our planet. Such is the case with popular beverage coffee that produces solid waste in the form of spent coffee grounds (SCG). There is an opportunity to use SCG material as a cheap, sustainable, and biodegradable polymer filler that is received as waste from espresso machines. There have been relatively many studies that prove the concept of various agricultural and forestry waste, which can be integrated into modern green materials. Building upon this concept, we have selected a promising polyester poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) as a matrix owing to its bio-based and biodegradable nature. High loadings of SCG from 20 to 60 wt% were tested for optimal composition performance. Tensile, dynamic mechanical, thermal, and structural properties of the composites were examined, while their biodegradation in composting conditions was also analyzed. SCG filler showed different performance from various cellulose fiber-based composites, and properties significantly varied depending on loading. Compared to neat PBS, biodegradation occurred twice as fast for composite materials with high SGC loadings.

Graphical abstract: Spent coffee waste as a renewable source for the production of sustainable poly(butylene succinate) biocomposites from a circular economy perspective

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 Apr 2021
Accepted
10 May 2021
First published
24 May 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2021,11, 18580-18589

Spent coffee waste as a renewable source for the production of sustainable poly(butylene succinate) biocomposites from a circular economy perspective

G. Gaidukova, O. Platnieks, A. Aunins, A. Barkane, C. Ingrao and S. Gaidukovs, RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 18580 DOI: 10.1039/D1RA03203H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements