Exploring the potential of coffee husk as caffeine bio-adsorbent – A mini-review

Abstract

At present, caffeine is emerging as a critical pollutant, due to its high demand in food, drinks, and prescription drugs. At the same time, the growth of the coffee market is generating an increment of coffee processing by-products, in the specific coffee husk, where for each ton of coffee produced, half-ton of coffee husk is generated. Even though currently coffee husk is used as the prime source for composting, fertilizers, and feedstock for cattle, there is still an ample fraction that ended up discharge to the environment. Thus, caffeine levels increase not only because of human consumption but also for the coffee process itself, in soil, and water bodies, affecting living organisms at the macro and microscopic level, including humans. Nonetheless, this scheme can change, and based on a circular economy approach, coffee husk opens the opportunity of reducing caffeine pollution by using the coffee plant itself. Therefore, this work aims to explore the alternative of using coffee husk as a bio-adsorbent to tackle caffeine contamination in aquatic, and terrestrial ecosystems.

Keywords

• Coffee by-products
• Bio-adsorption
• Caffeine metabolism
• Emergent pollulant
• Ecotoxic effects