How coffee makes concrete stronger

It can wake you up it is an antioxidant it is said to be naturersquos best preworkout drink when it comes to burning fat while working out and now it can make stronger housesNo this writer has not had too much coffee Just the usual four cups since morning The last fact mentioned above is supported by scientific research detailed in a research paper titled Transforming spent coffee grounds into a valuable resource for the enhancement of concrete strength published in the Journal of Cleaner Production this year And the lead author of this research paper is Dr Rajeev Roychand an Australian national originally from sadda PunjabBorn in the Gurdaspur district Roychand grew up in Amritsar and moved to Australia in 2005 for higher studies after completing his Masters in Civil EngineeringldquoI was living a carefree life on my fatherrsquos hardearned money with absolutely no vision for my futurerdquo Roychand tells midday through an email interaction ldquoIt was making my father quite anxious He finally decided to send me to Australia hoping that I may become serious when I wonrsquot find anybody to pamper me all the time and when I feel the realities of the harsh liferdquoThe move came as a blessing in disguise for Roychand who for the first time learned the importance of money during his first job at a restaurantldquoThe owner called me for a day It was a very busy restaurant and I worked from 3 pm to 11 pm without a single secondrsquos break I worked so hard that the owner of the restaurant asked me to become a regular employee of the restaurant This extreme hard work was like a sudden shock for me and I was not mentally prepared to accept this job offer Seeing that I wasnrsquot interested the owner refused to pay me I went to the station to go back home and cried a lot at the stationrdquo he recallsRoychand went on to work as a taxi driver till 2008 during which time he also got his citizenship and then worked as a structural engineer at a private firm Research however was always his callingldquoI was always fascinated by the research field so in year 2013 I decided to do my PhD at RMIT University Melbournerdquo Roychand says ldquoThe focus of my research was developing a low carbon footprint alternative to the conventional Portland cement By the time I completed my PhD in year 2017 I was successful in developing a high durability zero cement concrete utilising different industrial byproducts like fly ash slag silica fume and some chemical additivesrdquoThe road to Roychandrsquos Eureka moment in his latest project funnily enough started over a cup of coffee when the research group he is part of at RMIT met to discuss transformation of different waste materials to strengthen concreteldquoWe decided to start with coffee waste taking it as a challenge We worked on this project for about a year and finally we came up with a solution that could transform this waste into a valuable additive for strengthening concreterdquo he saysFor the benefit of the lay reader he breaks down the research into simple wordsldquoConcrete is made up of cement water sand and gravel In this project we found that heating spent coffee grounds at 350degC temperature in the absence of oxygen significantly improves its properties When this treated coffee waste is used as a replacement for sand it provides a 30 per cent improvement in the strength of concreterdquo he explainsThe team guided by Professor Jie Li and comprising Roychand and his fellow researchers Shannon KilmartinLynch and Mohammad Saberian Roychand made their findings public earlier this month leading to widespread fame Apart from several research enthusiasts and experts who spoke about the feat even the official account of the Australian Consulate in India lauded their achievementBut for them the most exciting part is that the waste that was ending up in landfills is now ready to be tried out as a high value byproduct for construction applications But thatrsquos not all Roychandrsquos research might soon be coming to India he revealsldquoNo doubt India could immensely benefit from this research I will be the happiest person if any of my research could benefit my motherland We are in consultation with one of the companies from Indiardquo he shares adding ldquoI still do miss a lot of things like Amritsari food and visiting friends and relatives during festivals But my world revolves around sciencerdquo he concludes