Ricerc@Sapienza

Coffee wastes and by-products from coffee industry are a source of contamination and a serious environmental problem, being mainly unutilized, discharged to the environment or burned. This promoted the interest of researchers in the characterization of wastes and by-products as coffee silverskin (CS, the tegument covering the coffee beans) to evaluate the possibility of reusing them.

A deeper knowledge of the chemical composition of coffee silverskin (CS) is needed due to the growing interest in its use as a food additive or an ingredient of dietary supplements. Accordingly, the aim of this paper was to investigate the metabolic profile of aqueous extracts of two varieties of CS, Coffee arabica (CS-A), Coffee canephora var. robusta (CS-R) and of a blend of the two (CS-b) and to compare it to the profile of Coffee arabica green coffee (GC).

This work investigates the feasibility of using coffee silverskin (CSS), one of the most abundant coffee waste products, as a reinforcing agent in biopolymer based composites. The chemical composition, antioxidant activity and morphology of CSS were studied by specific chemical essays and scanning electron microscopy, whilst the thermal stability and the functional groups available on the surface were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis and infrared spectroscopy, respectively.