{"id":181689,"date":"2026-09-29T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T05:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=181689"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T09:45:08","slug":"closed-loop-concept-from-coffee-grounds-to-a-coffee-mug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/closed-loop-concept-from-coffee-grounds-to-a-coffee-mug\/","title":{"rendered":"Closed-Loop Concept: From Coffee Grounds to a Coffee Mug"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

An unusual material concept emerged from an everyday observation: While studying engineering, Tynus and Marcus Byrgesen noticed the large amounts of coffee grounds generated at the university. \u201cWe thought there had to be a way to make something out of them,\u201d the founders recall. Since the waste material is readily available, the idea of a coffee cup made from coffee seemed obvious. In 2021, they founded the Danish startup Grounded Cups, but it took about five years to develop a market-ready product – a home-compostable, reusable coffee cup. The product was on display during the Arburg Technology Days, where the cups were produced on an Allrounder 500e Trend.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tynus und Marcus Byrgesen mit Chris Kollmann (r.).\u00a0\u00a9\u00a0Pelemedia<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The biggest hurdle was the manufacturing process. Fine, oily coffee particles are considered challenging for injection molding; many manufacturers refused to even try. The founders found support at the company J. Krebs. Managing Director Peter Bay is now also a minority shareholder in Grounded Cups. The company has relied on Arburg machines for years – five of them are now running 24\/7. At the heart of production is an Allrounder 820 S with 4,000 kN of clamping force. And so the Byrgesen brothers learned to run the process themselves on an Arburg machine and to adapt the material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, coffee powder and polymer granules were dosed separately. To achieve this, the team tested various screw designs; a mixing screw proved helpful in this early phase. The breakthrough came with upstream compounding: coffee grounds and biopolymer now enter the machine as a homogeneous granulate. This made the process significantly more stable – according to those involved, the material can now be processed using a standard barrel and standard screw. Automation is now also being used in series production. Chris Kollmann, Applications Manager at Arburg, summarizes the trials at the Lo\u00dfburg Customer Center: \u201cWe have successfully demonstrated that this special material can be processed using our machines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Production<\/a>
Production is currently set at 6 to 10 million cups per year.\u00a0\u00a9\u00a0Pelemedia<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/a>Made from 50% recycled coffee grounds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Half of the compound consists of processed coffee grounds. Grounded Cups deliberately chose a high proportion of this material; eventually, the goal is to increase it to at least 60 percent. A PHA biopolymer made from used cooking oils serves as the binder. Before this step, the moist waste material is dried and de-oiled. Water content, particle size, and the degree of roasting complicate this step. The extracted coffee oil is used, among other things, in cosmetics. In the long term, the founders want to ferment their own biopolymer from it – with the goal of creating a cup made entirely from coffee components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Material development also involved properties that initially seemed incidental in the lab. Early cups had a distinct coffee smell. While that served as convincing proof of origin, it was distracting when drinking, according to Marcus Byrgesen. That\u2019s why Grounded Cups had to specifically remove the aroma. The dark base color, on the other hand, was retained – and the startup has no issue with that at all; quite the contrary: the color signifies the high coffee grounds content and reinforces the product\u2019s credibility. While other bold colors are technically possible, suitable biodegradable dyes have so far been available only in limited quantities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Circular B2B Business Model<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"Half<\/a>
Half of the compound consists of recycled coffee grounds; the goal is to increase this to at least 60 percent in the future.\u00a0\u00a9\u00a0Pelemedia<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/a>Obtaining approval for food contact was particularly time-consuming. According to the founders, about four years of development work also went into food safety. The finished cup is designed for repeated use. If the color or surface changes after several wash cycles, Grounded Cups takes it back. The ground material is not reused for food contact; instead, it is used to make products that do not require such approval and can eventually be biodegraded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this stable compound, the company was then able to make the transition from pilot production to mass production. \u201cWith the new material, it was practically plug-and-play,\u201d says Marcus Byrgesen. Production is designed to handle 6 to 10 million cups per year. Today, the bottleneck lies less in injection molding than in processing large quantities of coffee grounds to a consistent quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The B2B business model is circular: Companies collect coffee grounds; Grounded Cups picks them up and delivers new cups on the same routes. Consolidating pickups at large companies is more efficient than making separate trips to many individual cafes. Because wet coffee grounds spoil quickly – especially in the summer – they generally need to be picked up at least every two days. Combined delivery and pickup routes minimize the logistical effort. After use, the cups are shredded and processed into items such as gardening supplies or golf tees. This keeps the raw material in the cycle for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After gaining its first customers in Denmark, the startup is preparing to expand into Sweden, Norway, and possibly Germany as well. And a new project is already in the works: beer mugs made from the byproducts of the beer-brewing process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unusual material concept emerged from an everyday observation: While studying engineering, Tynus and Marcus Byrgesen noticed the large amounts of coffee grounds generated at the university. \u201cWe thought there had to be a way to make something out of them,\u201d the founders recall. Since the waste material is readily available, the idea of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":181707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Making new coffee cups from coffee grounds: The Danish startup Grounded Cups has brought this idea to mass production. An injection-moldable compound, automated processes, and a closed-loop concept form the basis for producing millions of units","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[12990,11270,6026,10416,25015,12239,12228,7676],"supplier":[13590,28609,28610],"class_list":["post-181689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biocompounds","tag-biodegradability","tag-biopolymers","tag-circulareconomy","tag-coffeegrounds","tag-compostability","tag-cosmetics","tag-pha","supplier-arburg-bv","supplier-grounded-cups","supplier-j-krebs-and-co"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181727,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181689\/revisions\/181727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181689"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=181689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}