Unspent Turns Industrial Coffee Waste into High-Value Materials
If you drink coffee—whether you’re devoted or just dabble—you’re probably familiar with the messy leftover grounds after brewing a cup. Now imagine that mess scaled up to an industrial level.
Globally, the coffee industry generates millions of tons of waste each year before the beans ever reach consumers. It’s an environmental burden—one that Columbus-based startup
Unspent is working to solve.
“Coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world, yet nearly 90 percent of the coffee bean becomes waste during roasting and brewing. Most of it ends up in landfills,” said Katie Williamson, founder and CEO of Unspent, a Columbus-based startup. “When companies don’t have a financial incentive to reuse their waste, it’s often cheaper to just throw it away,” Williamson explains.
Unspent is commercializing patent-pending technology from The Ohio State University, of which Williamson and her cofounder, Emmanuel Hatzakis, are the inventors, that transforms industrial-scale coffee waste into a biodegradable, high-performance material called Copoxee™.
From Coffee Waste to Commercial-ready Materials
Unspent’s process extracts oil from used coffee grounds and converts it into Copoxee™, a stable, honey-like material used to improve biodegradable plastics. It acts as a plasticizer, enhancing flexibility and durability—solving a major challenge in the bioplastics industry, where many products are too brittle for commercial use.
“Copoxee™ is the first plasticizer made entirely from waste materials,” Williamson said. “In lab tests, we’ve found manufacturers can use less of it to achieve the same or better results than soy-based alternatives.” In addition to enhancing sustainability, COPOXEE significantly improves the water and oxygen barrier properties of bioplastics—addressing two of the most critical challenges in bioplastic packaging.
What’s more, the material requires no special equipment to use, making it easy for manufacturers to integrate into existing production lines. “Each manufacturer has their own process. We’re giving them a drop-in, bio-based solution that fits seamlessly into what they already do,” said Williamson.
A Blend of Chemistry and Entrepreneurship
Unspent is currently partnering with major U.S. coffee producers to test the technology and prototype real-world applications. “We’re working with them to validate the business case—and to fine-tune how Copoxee™ performs across different products,” Williamson said.
The journey from lab to market has been powered not just by innovation, but by support systems for entrepreneurs.
As a technical founder, Williamson said the startup journey has been about more than building a product—it’s about building the right network. “We first connected with Rev1 Ventures through the TBFS Phase 2 grant,” she said, “and then joined the accelerator at just the right time. It’s been an amazing resource. Rev1 introduced me to mentors and partners who are already helping us solve real business challenges. We’re just getting started.”
