Researchers at UNSW Sydney have harnessed the power of ultrasonic sound waves to make espresso-strength coffee with room temperature water, cutting energy use by up to 75%.
probably can be done, but ultrasound irradiation itself will warm up coffee a little. if all of it goes to heat, then it’s extra 20C or so so you’ll have to cool it down afterwards anyway
They’re talking about commercial scale coffee products and coffee flavoured products (bottled coffee drinks, instant coffee, etc.), where a reduction of 75% of the energy consumption could not only be very profitable, but also helpful in hitting environmental targets. Coffee is already a bit of an environmental nightmare when it comes to water usage in farming, so lessening the impact of commercial coffee is definitely a plus.
if all that energy is used to boil water and we’re cutting that energy use by 3/4 then it’s saving 70Wh (not kWh) per litre, or 70kWh per cubic meter. that’s not much
You can heat the water afterwards.
A lot of the heat in the hot water is lost in the beans.
This might never have an application at your local coffee shop, but for canned coffee it will make a dramatic difference in profitability.
Not sure how I feel about this. There is no real logic to my resistance on the idea, but I have some.
I don’t really get it to be honest. It’s pretty pointless if you don’t want room temperature coffee, or no.
Perfect for iced coffee though
Better. Perfect would be using chilled water. I’m on a limited connection right now so I can’t investigate, but I’m curious to know if they tested.
probably can be done, but ultrasound irradiation itself will warm up coffee a little. if all of it goes to heat, then it’s extra 20C or so so you’ll have to cool it down afterwards anyway
They’re talking about commercial scale coffee products and coffee flavoured products (bottled coffee drinks, instant coffee, etc.), where a reduction of 75% of the energy consumption could not only be very profitable, but also helpful in hitting environmental targets. Coffee is already a bit of an environmental nightmare when it comes to water usage in farming, so lessening the impact of commercial coffee is definitely a plus.
if all that energy is used to boil water and we’re cutting that energy use by 3/4 then it’s saving 70Wh (not kWh) per litre, or 70kWh per cubic meter. that’s not much
When you’re dealing with thousands of litres per hour, it’s a fair amount.
You can heat the water afterwards. A lot of the heat in the hot water is lost in the beans. This might never have an application at your local coffee shop, but for canned coffee it will make a dramatic difference in profitability.
A coffee shop is still going to have a regular espresso machine running all the time.
Did you use reading comprehension as a dump stat? You just used different words to say what I said.