In order to achieve the European energy and climate policy goal of climate neutrality by 2050, it is necessary to activate various available renewable energy sources, including biological residues or waste. One such biological waste, which is produced in large quantities and usually enters the environment unprocessed, is spent ground coffee. As spent ground coffee consist of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and proteins, it has great potential as a biofuel, and could partially replace wood biomass in the production of pellets. In our research, we have produced pellets under laboratory conditions from spent ground coffee to which we have added different proportions (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%) of sawdust. We determined the properties of the pellets and categorized them into quality classes based on the measured values according to the SIST EN ISO 17225-6:2021 standard. We found that pellets with a higher proportion of spent ground coffee residues have a higher calorific value, higher ash content and lower mechanical durability. Pellets made from spent ground coffee residues with the addition of sawdust (50% or more) show promising properties for use as a raw material for pellet production.
|
