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Foreword
In this month’s foreword we take a closer look at developments in the valorisation of coffee waste.
Gill-Gómez, Florez-Padro and Leguizamón-Vargas have undertaken a review of industry projects and academic research with the results published in ‘Discover Applied Sciences’. The review highlights the significant growth in global coffee production, the large amount of waste generated along the coffee production chain, and the various industries that are exploring ways to utilize the wastes and by-products.
Coffee milling is a procedure that involves transforming the ripe coffee cherry through removing the exterior part of the cherry - which covers the seed of the coffee bean - to attain a product used by the food industry. A coffee cherry bean is typically consisted of the outer skin, pulp and mucilage in the mesocarp, pectin layer, parchment, silver skin and the endosperm or green bean in the middle. The process achieves isolation of the endosperm. Throughout the process multiple by-products are produced; for example defective and unripe beans are weeded out during the beans selection while husk and pulp are produced during the coffee pulping. At the next step, fermentation creates CO2 and subsequently pectin- and cellulose-rich mucilage and water are fed out during the washing step. Finally, husk and silver skin as well as parchment are produced during drying and threshing.
Coffee processing produces 42–50 wt% of the cherry as by-products and it is estimated that the pulp constitutes around 39-45%, mucilage produced is near 12.5-22% and husk constitutes around 4-9% of the total volume of by-products. In Colombia alone, the third biggest coffee manufacturer, in excess of 1.6 million tons of pulp was produced in 2022. Around 550,000 tons of the second most abundant by-product, mucilage, was generated with a further 155,000 tons of husk produced. Regarding the spent coffee grounds generated in the soluble coffee factories, a production volume of around 380,000 tons was reported.
Other News this Month Includes:
Policy
- Business aviation SAF coalition calls for uniform USDA guidelines on biofuel feedstock standards
Markets
- Arable Market Report (02 September 2024)
- Boeing: Southeast Asia primed to play key role in growth of Sustainable Aviation fuel industry
- More...
Research & Development
- Seaweed success
- Large-format material extrusion additive manufacturing of PLA, LDPE, and HDPE compound feedstock with spent coffee grounds
- More...
Wood & Crop
- Drax to pay £25m after regulator finds wood pellet reporting failures
- ENplus® is expected to certify more than 14.5 million tonnes of wood pellets in 2024
- More...
Biorefinery
- Waste from the food industry: Innovations in biorefineries for sustainable use of resources and generation of value
- Alltech joins the Mid-Ulster Biorefinery and Circular Economy Cluster to promote the generation of biomethane
- More...
Other Feedstocks
- Newcastle food waste trial set to create crop fertiliser
- Sweden’s green steel pilot project a success with commercialisation now underway
- More...
Events
Feedstock Prices