Ford has a McDonald's caffeine fix for plastic parts

The dried coffee bean skin chaff from roasting makes a perfect filler material in plastic parts.

Dan Carney, Senior Editor

December 17, 2019

3 Min Read
Ford has a McDonald's caffeine fix for plastic parts

Image souce: Ford Motor Co.

Like many commuters, Ford Motor Co. is making a morning stop by Mickey Dee’s for coffee. Only Ford’s coffee run is for the chaff of the dried skin that comes off the beans when roasting them. 

McDonald’s USA produces millions of pounds of coffee chaff every year, and now Ford is incorporating some of that waste stream into the creation of injection-molded plastic parts like F-150 pickup truck headlamp housings.

An F-150 headlamp housing. Image source: Ford Motor Co.

Ford's Sustainability Projects

2007: Soybean-based foam for seats and headliners

2008: Recycled plastic bottles for carpets, wheel liners and fabrics

2009: Wheat straw for storage bins and cup holders

2010: Post-consumer recycled cotton for door and trunk sound-dampening

2011: Recycled tires for seals and gaskets and dandelions for floor mats, cupholders and interior trim pieces

2012: Recycled/shredded US currency for small bins and coin holders and kenaf plant into door bolsters

2013: Rice hulls for electrical harnesses

2014: Tomato skins for wiring brackets and storage bins

2015: Cellulose tree bark for underhood applications

2016: Agave fiber for cup holders and storage bins

2017: Captured CO2 to convert into foams and padding

2018: Bamboo for interior and underhood plastic composite parts

2019: Coffee chaff for headlamp housings and underhood components

The chaff serves as a filler in place of talc, which is normally used to help reduce the weight, increase the strength and improve the heat resistance of plastic parts by blending it into the mixture that is used to make parts

The coffee chaff doesn’t just turn out to be a sustainable alternative to talc, it actually performs even better than the regular material. Of course, if you could just grind up coffee chaff and stir it into plastic materials, suppliers would likely have been doing so already.

Ford’s Research and Innovation Center has developed a process that heats the chaff to high temperatures under low oxygen and then mixes it along with other additives into plastic to create the pellets that plastic manufacturers use to create the end product.

Ford and McDonald’s partner with Competitive Green Technologies, which processes the coffee chaff and with Varroc Lighting Systems, which supplies the F-150’s headlamps to Ford. Together, they create parts that are about 20 percent lighter than before and use 25 percent less energy during the molding process, but which have significantly better heat properties than headlight housings made with talc.

“The coffee chaff is even better than the talc material we are replacing,” said Debbie Mielewski, Ford senior technical leader, sustainability and emerging materials research team. “It is better for the environment, lighter weight and it even has better heat properties.”

While McDonald’s produces millions of pounds of chaff annually, the project with Ford is starting off using 75,000 lbs. “Which really is a lot, but it is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Ian Olson, senior director of global sustainability for McDonald’s. “The potential is unlimited,” he enthused.

Indeed, Ford doesn’t plan to stop with just this one part for one vehicle. “We don’t want to put it on just one car line,” said Mielewski. “We start there and grow it until we do sustainability everywhere we can.”

Ford has a record of using recycled and sustainable materials in its vehicles dating to 2007, when the company employed soybean-based foam for seats and headliners. “This has been a priority for Ford for over 20 years, and this is an example of jump starting the closed-loop economy, where different industries work together and exchange materials that otherwise would be side or waste products,” Mielewski explained.

McDonald’s is planning to have all of its coffee beans be sustainably sourced by 2020, which will further improve the benefits of the project. “Like McDonald’s, Ford is committed to minimizing waste and we’re always looking for innovative ways to further that goal,” said Olson. “By finding a way to use coffee chaff as a resource, we are elevating how companies together can increase participation in the closed-loop economy.”

 

Dan Carney is a Design News senior editor, covering automotive technology, engineering and design, especially emerging electric vehicle and autonomous technologies.

About the Author

Dan Carney

Senior Editor, Design News

Dan’s coverage of the auto industry over three decades has taken him to the racetracks, automotive engineering centers, vehicle simulators, wind tunnels, and crash-test labs of the world.

A member of the North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year jury, Dan also contributes car reviews to Popular Science magazine, serves on the International Engine of the Year jury, and has judged the collegiate Formula SAE competition.

Dan is a winner of the International Motor Press Association's Ken Purdy Award for automotive writing, as well as the National Motorsports Press Association's award for magazine writing and the Washington Automotive Press Association's Golden Quill award.

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He has held a Sports Car Club of America racing license since 1991, is an SCCA National race winner, two-time SCCA Runoffs competitor in Formula F, and an Old Dominion Region Driver of the Year award winner. Co-drove a Ford Focus 1.0-liter EcoBoost to 16 Federation Internationale de l’Automobile-accredited world speed records over distances from just under 1km to over 4,104km at the CERAM test circuit in Mortefontaine, France.

He was also a longtime contributor to the Society of Automotive Engineers' Automotive Engineering International magazine.

He specializes in analyzing technical developments, particularly in the areas of motorsports, efficiency, and safety.

He has been published in The New York Times, NBC News, Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, The Washington Post, Hagerty, AutoTrader.com, Maxim, RaceCar Engineering, AutoWeek, Virginia Living, and others.

Dan has authored books on the Honda S2000 and Dodge Viper sports cars and contributed automotive content to the consumer finance book, Fight For Your Money.

He is a member and past president of the Washington Automotive Press Association and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers

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