Who said coffee is only for drinking? Through some awfully cutting edge thinking, scholars at the College of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia, have built what is regarded as the first coffee wood composite house. This is a really appropriate achievement for a top educational establishment in a land famous for its quality coffee.
From the seed to the cup and now to sweet, sweet coffee home! How did they are doing it? Graduate engineering scholars started educational work about building houses with attention on "design for sustainability. " Their professor, Jaime Medina, Director of the study middle of Polymer Processing ( "Centro de Investigacion en Procesamiento de Polimeros ) of the University of the Andes in Bogota supervised the project.
The main objectives were, * Low construction costs. Light weight. Portability. * straightforwardness of upkeep. Non poisonous. * Suppleness . Sturdiness. * Identifying an ecological alternative to normal building materials like wood.
* Tree logging is accountable for major deforestation in the country. * Reducing the usage of chemicals in the construction process to push good health standards. * Over a period of 2 years, the scholars evaluated multiple Eco friendly materials to build houses like banana plants, palm trees, bamboo, coffee, for example. To appreciate why coffee became the front runner for the new construction material in this educational project, it's very important to study some basic stuff about the steps in the coffee processing. From the seed to the cup, coffee goes through a couple of natural steps, * Planting the coffee trees and cultivating them for years before they bear fruit ( coffee cherries ). * Cropping the cherries using "strip picking " or "selective picking " strategies. * Processing the coffee cherries using "dry methodology " or "wet method.
" * Drying the beans if they've been processed using the "wet method. " * Milling the beans to take away the parchment layer ( endocarp ) from wet processed coffee. * Hulling dry processed coffee to get rid of the whole dried husk of the dried cherries. * At each step of its production, coffee is repeatedly tested for quality and taste. * Exporting is the very next step for the milled coffee also called " 'green coffee. " * Eventually , roasting and brewing coffee completes the cycle to the cup from the seed. Each one of these steps employs each part of the coffee tree and its fruit excepting the dried husk that has been generally considered rubbish and dropped --until now! * Coffee rubbish ( "dried husk " or "Crisco " in Spanish ) became the inventive ingredient the scholars combined with recycled PVC to design per-fabricated panels for home construction. * The result's a material that's powerful, light, practical, cheap, easy to build and extremely Eco friendly.
* The coffee composite building panels offer simple installation and sturdiness.
* it's actually possible to build a place from this new material in about one week. * This is a brilliant solution to address population housing needs among lower income groups. At first impression, it is tough to identify the difference between a regular prefabricated wood laminate panel and the new coffee composite panels. * What seems to be a natural wood grain pattern is truly dried coffee husk panel jumbled in with recycled PVC for a pleasant and handy finish.
* The panels look kind of like pieces of a giant Lego game you can fit, one at a time, without any glue or cement to form the house. Materials of this sort are available elsewhere in the world, ordinarily referred to as "plastic wood composite. " what's different with this project is that in Colombia, they didn't use sawdust or wood. Instead, the major ingredient is dried coffee husks. This is a first for such application! * The project received the support of "Colciencias, " the govt institute made to support systematic research in Colombia * The new production material is now branded using the name Wood Pecker ( how suitable ). * The goal is to exploit commercially the utilization of this new home building material.
It makes you wonder, what will they think about next? Hence here is a toast to creativity and an ideal time to enjoy a good cup of Colombian Supremo!
