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Farm-level efficiency has a sticking point in the coffee industry for some time now. Already battling against razor thin margins (that are only getting thinner<\/a>), folks have come up with inventive ways to utilize all aspects of the coffee growing process in hopes of making it a profitable venture. In the past years, cascara has gone from byproduct to ubiquitous cafe beverage, one farm began collecting and selling honey<\/a> from bees who solely pollenated coffee blossoms, and working with Terroir Chocolate<\/a>, some producers have planted cocoa trees at lower elevations to be used for single origin bean-to-bar chocolate<\/a> that includes coffee from the same farm.<\/p>\n And according to The Guardian<\/a>, UK scientists thinking beyond coffee have created a fuel cell that not only removes contaminants from wastewater, but creates electricity in the process.<\/p>\n Funded by the UK government and led by the University of Surrey systems microbiologist Dr. Claudio Avignone Rossa, researchers from the UK worked with Colombian counterparts to create a biome-based fuel cell to create energy from the waste in water used during \u201cthe washing of coffee seeds, or beans, and during the water-intensive process of making instant coffee.\u201d While coffee has been used as a biofuel before<\/a>, the article notes that this is the first time it has created electricity.<\/p>\n The hungry little microbe pooping out power was originally found in the \u201csludge from wastewater treatment plants;\u201d it just so happens to also be readily available on Colombian farms. \u201cSupply is not a problem,\u201d Dr. Avignone Rossa tells The Guardian.<\/p>\n Dr. Avignone Rossa goes on to note that the amount of power the fuel cells can produce isn\u2019t staggering, the effects it can have are not insignificant either:<\/p>\n You\u2019re not going to light up London with these things, but you\u2019re going to put a light where there was none.<\/p>\n The farmer will be getting a little bit of energy coming from the waste they are throwing away. So the environment will be cleaner. The finances of the farm will be improved.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The size of a soda can, the original lab versions fuel cell cost \u00a3300-\u00a3500 to produce\u2014due mostly the materials used\u2014but that cost can be cut to less than\u00a0\u00a32 by using “ceramics and disposable plastic boxes” instead.<\/p>\n The new fuel cell is a double whammy: it’s eco-friendly and financially positive for producers, two big issues in the coffee world. And while their current electrical output is small, this is a pretty big first step toward easy and cheap access to power. It’s not like electric cars started out getting over 300 miles on a single charge; it took time, research, and interested parties. This fuel cell may prove to be more than just a building block. It may be a cornerstone.<\/p>\n Zac Cadwalader<\/a>\u00a0is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.\u00a0Read more Zac Cadwalader\u00a0on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post A New Fuel Cell Converts Coffee Wastewater Into Electricity<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Farm-level efficiency has a sticking point in the coffee industry for some time now. Already battling against razor thin margins (that are only getting thinner), folks have come up with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[63,27,65,33,61,32,59,31,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n