Superhydrophilic three-dimensional porous spent coffee ground reduced palladium nanoparticles for efficient catalytic reduction.

The use of functional biodegradable wastes to treat environmental problems would create minimal extra burden to our environment. In this paper, we propose a sustainable and practical strategy to turn spent coffee ground (SCG) into a multifunctional palladium-loaded catalyst for water treatment instead of going into landfill as solid waste. Bleached delignified coffee ground (D-SCG) has a porous structure and a good capability to reduce Pd (II) to Pd (0). A large amount of nanocellulose is formed on the surface of SCG after bleaching by H2O2, which anchors and disperses the palladium nanoparticles (Pd NPs). The D-SCG loaded with Pd NPs (Pd-D-SCG) is superhydrophilic, which facilitates water transport and thus promotes efficient removal of organic pollutants dissolved in water. Pd-D-SCG exhibits excellent room temperature catalytic activity for the removal of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and methylene blue (MB) in water and shows good chemical stability and recyclability in water, with no obvious decrease even after five repeated cycles.

From brown to colored: Polylactic acid composite with micro/nano-structured white spent coffee grounds for three-dimensional printing.

Functional fillers in three-dimensional (3D) printing composite filaments offer an innovative way spent coffee grounds (SCGs) can be reused. However, the inherent brownness of SCGs places a limit on the color in which the composite filament and, consequently, the finished print appears. Herein, colored composite filaments for fused deposition modeling were successfully fabricated, where micro/nano-structured decolorized SCGs (MN-DSCGs) were embedded within polylactic acid (PLA) matrix. At the optimum condition, the 3D prints using composite filaments exhibit comparable tensile and flexural strength to the PLA counterparts. Also, they demonstrate superior melt flow and excellent print quality. Under the same condition, 3D printed MN-DSCGs/PLA blend has sufficient color restoration as compared to the prints using virgin PLA.