You may currently grab a coffee while filling up your car at a petrol station, but in the future you could be refuelling your vehicle with the aromatic brown liquid too.
Scientists claim that a ‘green’ biofuel made from waste coffee grounds could power vehicles on our roads.
Around 22lbs (10kg) of leftover grounds, generated by the average coffee shop, produces around two litres of the biofuel.
The scientists believe that if this were scaled up nationally, popular high street coffee shops such as Starbucks, Café Nero and Costa Coffee could soon be rivalling oil giants like Shell, BP and Esso.
Researchers at the University of Bath said waste coffee grounds could be a sustainable fuel source for powering vehicles.
They have made biofuel from ground coffee produced in 20 different geographic regions, including caffeinated and decaffeinated forms.
The study, published in the journal Energy Fuels, found that different varieties of coffee — including Robusta and Arabica — have reasonably uniform composition and physical properties for use as a fuel. That means all coffee waste could be a viable way of producing biodiesel.
The scientists claim that oil can be extracted from coffee grounds by soaking them in an organic solvent before using a special process to transform them into biodiesel.
Source: dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2659183/Scientists-create-biofuel-using-ground-coffee-beans.html
