You wake up in the morning feeling groggy and your limbs seem to not want to listen to your instructions. You’re sure that you’ve somehow lost a cone cell type somehow in your eyes, because the world seems to be a grey blur. Stumbling to the kitchen, you manage to go through the motions and end up with your favourite cup of joe. As you sip at it, the world starts up again. Birds are singing, children are laughing, and all is finally right with the world.
How do you like your coffee? (Image provided by Wikimedia Commons.)
Recent studies have shown that coffee has even more miracle effects to offer: scientists were recently able to create foam filters out of leftover coffee grounds, which have the capability of filtering out harmful heavy metals from drinking water. These chemicals include metals such as lead and mercury.
Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology have created a foam that is 60% coffee grounds and 40% of a silicone elastomer, which is a chemical compound that gives the foam some elasticity.
The resulting foam material. (Image provided by American Chemical Society)
This foam has quite a dramatic effect when used in water filtration; Experiments show that 67% of lead ions can be removed just by running the water through the foam, and up to 99% of lead and mercury ions can be filtered if the water is allowed to sit in the foam for 30 hours.
This inexpensive and reliable material could help us reduce wastes, as it will provide a use for all of the coffee grounds that are thrown out everyday, as well as help increase the availability of clean water in areas that desperately need it, such as developing countries or areas in crisis, such as Flit, Michigan’s water contamination problem.
The paper was just released September 1st, 2016, so there has not been enough time for the material to be introduced and used in the real world. However, this discovery is definitely the start of a great change, and it will surely leave a great impact on the world as an ecofriendly way of treating water.
Dennis Lin, Undergraduate Chemistry Student
References:
- Asmita A. Chavan, Javier Pinto, Ioannis Liakos, Ilker S. Bayer, Simone Lauciello, Athanassia Athanassiou, Despina Fragouli.Spent Coffee Bioelastomeric Composite Foams for the Removal of Pb2 and Hg2 from Water. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 2016; DOI:10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b01098
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