Pakenham’s most famous footpath continues to excel as RMIT University’s coffee biochar concrete won a prestigious Shaping Australia Award for its work on the Pakenham Roads Upgrade.
At the Shaping Australia Awards, the team’s outstanding work with coffee biochar and its applications in concrete has been recognised by the community, winning The Problem Solver award for 2024.
This work recognises groundbreaking research work that has already transformed, or holds the potential to transform, the lives of Australians for the better.
The Shaping Australia Awards shine a spotlight on the impactful contributions universities make each day – shaping our nation's future through teaching, research and community service.
Major Road Projects Victoria worked with RMIT University and project contractor BildGroup to lay the first ever section of coffee biochar concrete on the project late last year.
For this project alone, 5 tonnes of spent coffee grounds – approximately 140,000 coffees worth of grounds – was converted into 2 tonnes of useable biochar, which has been laid into the 30 cubic metres of concrete used in the footpath in Pakenham.
Organic waste in landfill, including spent coffee grounds, contributes 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. To overcome this challenge, the RMIT team developed a technique to convert spent coffee grounds into a coffee biochar made without oxygen and use this in concrete production.
Research conducted by RMIT indicates that the use of coffee biochar in concrete has the potential to increase the strength of concrete by up to 30%, reduce the amount of fine aggregate sand needed in a concrete mix. This innovation has the potential to result in a more ecological friendly and economical alternative to traditional concrete mixes.
The Pakenham Roads Upgrade has completed major works on Stage 1 of the project, delivering new ramps and lanes on the Princes Freeway and a new bridge on Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road over the freeway. Works on Stage 2 of the project to widen the McGregor Road citybound freeway entry ramp will be completed in March.
Find out more about the Pakenham Roads Upgrade.