Spent coffee grounds: Massively supplied carbohydrate polymer applicable to electrorheology

Abstract

Enormous volume of spent coffee grounds in our life is one of interesting method to acquire natural carbon source for several industries. The purpose of this work is considering the discarded organic waste as polysaccharide-based ER materials. Cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are simple to apply in electro rheological materials based on previous studies. The surface of spent coffee grounds were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) in order to examine the functional groups which force to ER effect. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field-emission gun scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to characterize promising ER material. Different volume fractions of ER fluid were evaluated in order to determine the optimum condition for high shear stress, storage/loss modulus and temperature stability were also investigated for feasibility.